This is how my battle began! Please help if anyone has good advice! This started with the birth of my son. Long story short, he almost died at birth had surgery at a month old and I was off work longer than anticipated. There was a month when I could not make a payment, so being the honest person I am I called and spoke with customer service to make some sort of arrangement. Was told by two different reps that there was nothing they could do and when I asked to speak to a supervisor I was not allowed. Advice I recieved was to let my account go to collections, they could help me. Not much choice in the matter and being too naive and trustworthy that's what I did.
In the meantime, I had decided that I was responsible for my debt (have always paid even though some have taken a while) and did not want to destroy my credit. Contacted Christian Debt Services. Set up $125.00 payment with them (however they have since contracted my debt out to Nationwide Consumer Credit). I have kept Sears aka Citibank advised of all this and the collection calls keep coming as expected. I also learned through Sears aka Citibank that they have recieved no proposal or payment as of today 9-28-05 (started process on 9-6-05 and pymt. Cleared my bank). Tried numerous times via email and phone calls to Nationwide since 9-22 and only today was I able to get through only to speak to a voicemail. So not sure what the deal is there, however, I am not pleased to say the least.
Back to the issue at hand. I understand that these transactions take time and for the most part Sears aka Citibank collections has been patient. I have contacted them and have always spoken with them when they called me. Things were mostly civil until this afternoon. Recieved a call from a female rep regarding my delinquent account. Tried to explain the situation only to get a hostile reaction from her. I repeatedly asked her for her name, which she would not give me. I also repeatedly asked to speak to a supervisor or manager. Her response to me was "our managers don't take calls. All they do is walk the floor and do paperwork". The last time I asked her her name and to speak to a manager (before she hung up on me!) she then told me that she was a manager, which totally contradicted her first statement to me.
Needless to say, I was livid! I called back to the customer service number I had, spoke with a new rep, explained my account situation once again and informed her of the harrassing call I recieved and demanded to speak to a supervisor. This time I actually got to speak to one (they really exist!?). Although I doubt it did much good. Gave him the info and by his tone you could tell that he cared less and was just pacifying me to get me off the phone.
Please let it be known that I am a hard working individual who on more than on occasion has held down 2 sometimes 3 jobs to make the ends meet. I do not run from my debts and have tried to find a solution to this one, but have only found more stress and added fees. This situation was not a choice of going on a spending spree, this happened due to life circumstances that we not in my control. If this was the only debt I had it would be no problem to pay, however, I am sitting on a pile of medical bills. My measly budget is stretched to the max with only room for necessity and sometimes those aren't taken care of. I have been a loyal Sears customer for years and had at one time another credit card through them that was paid off with no problems. If this is how they treat loyal customers and people who DO make attempts to set things right, they certainly will not be recieving any more business from me nor my family.
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