CitiFinancial Retail Services
Same-as-Cash Payment Credited Late, $900 Finance Charges

Beware of financing same-as-cash purchases with CitiFinancial! We bought furniture on an 18-month same-as-cash plan. Our finance period was up on July 3. We mailed the payment in full on June 29. The payment only had to travel 60 miles from our home to Columbus, OH. CitiFinancial did not credit our payment until July 8. They then charged us all of the finance charges, over $900. We sent a letter to the dispute department, which is what the back of the bill said to do, explaining all of this, but it was disregarded.

Next came another bill with the finance charges, late charges and interest added on. Again we sent a letter and again it was disregarded. Another bill came with more late charges and interest added on. Then the calls started. There were messages on the answering machine at least once a day, and sometimes more, from the collections department. When we finally made contact with them, they told us they could not help us and that we needed to contact the dispute department.

We called the number they gave us for disputes, and they claimed they never got any letters from us. We then had to fax a letter to them, and they said they would consider the claim.

Several weeks went by, and then we got a letter saying that the dispute had been denied and that we owed the money. As a courtesy, they credited ONE late fee ($29). Actually, we should not have had any fees or interest added to the disputed portions of our bill while it was in dispute, but they added fees anyway.

We contacted the dispute department again to try to resolve this, since we had paid in full 4 days before the due date. We were offered a deal to split the fees. We contacted a lawyer to see what we could do. He suggested we just pay to preserve our credit. We did not want to do that since we did nothing wrong.

We called the dispute department again and supposedly went all the way to the top of management, and we were treated very rudely. They insisted that we owed the money because the payment did not arrive in time. They said that the 50% offer was "off the table" since we didn't take it when it was offered. They said that if we did not pay in 10 days, it would go to collections and be written off as a bad debt against our credit. We sent them payment by certified mail so that it could be tracked and they would not be able to say they did not receive it again.

Amazingly, our payment was mailed at 3:25 P.M. on a Wednesday afternoon and arrived at its destination at 10:49 A.M. the very next day! Now, if that check took less than 24 hours to arrive, I'm pretty sure that the original payment did not take 11 days to arrive. Oh, if I'd only spent the $3.00 to send that check certified mail!

Buyer beware! Avoid any dealings with CitiFinancial!

Company: CitiFinancial Retail Services
Country: USA
State: Arizona
City: Tempe
Address: P.O. Box 22060
Phone: 8006435607

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