This is pretty much a copy of a letter I wrote to the United States Postal Service about the actions of Bill Me Later, backed by CIT Bank in Salt Lake City.
BillMeLater provides a service through Newegg.com that allows customers to have no payments for 90 days. We have taken advantage of this service multiple times over the past couple of years and, aside from one incident in 2007, have had little trouble. That incident took over 4 months to drag a refund out of the company. Newegg directed the refund for a broken printer through BillMeLater, and it was our first encounter with their poor record keeping and their unwillingness to correct records or admit that BillMeLater had failed to keep accurate records.
However, a purchase made on 7/7 cleared BillMeLater's $250 mark by a wide margin and was accepted into the 90 days no payment. About a month after the purchase, we suddenly started receiving invoices for minimum payments and additional finance charges. Somebody at BillMeLater goofed. We contacted the company and made it plain that we were not going to pay the finance charges, and that there were no minimum payments, per their own advertising and per the receipt from Newegg. We finished paying off the $456.15 within the 90-day period.
However, after we made it clear to Bill Me Later in multiple mailed letters that, as far as we were concerned, the bill was paid and finalized, we continued to receive invoices for additional payments.
One of the conclusions we can reach is that Bill Me Later is attempting to commit consumer fraud and rip us off by deliberately failing to acknowledge their advertising and correct their records. We sent Bill Me Later printed copies of the Newegg.com receipt and explained in plain detail that there would be no minimum payments or finance charges on a 90-day no-pay purchase, and it did nothing to correct the company. So now we are here. Either Bill Me Later is simply incompetent at record keeping, or their backing bank is out to rip off consumers by saying one thing and then doing another.
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