Made a payment online in the amount of $8,000 in Feb. 2009 to these creeps and received only ONE payment confirmation code and ONE confirmation email. Found out a couple of days later (you can imagine how) that they withdrew double payments from my checking account! Called to have the second payment reversed and was told I would have to wait 7-10 days to receive a check in the mail. Wait 7-10 days for $8,000? Explained to them that this was putting my checking account in an overdraft situation and needed the funds returned immediately.
Supervisor Blake told me their online payment system was not set up to accept more than one payment per day, per account, implying that I must have requested both payments online, like yeah, I would want to overpay them by $8,000 because I just happen to not need that money in the daily course of running my business. They were trying to hold $8,000 of my money when they knew that the double payment was processed in error and it was an error generated by their own online payment system!
Filed a report with my bank that the double payment was in error and got the funds back in my account (and out of First Equity's) the same day. These creeps told me they were unable to process an ACH credit back to my checking account nor wire the funds to correct the error. They are a bank but they cannot return unauthorized funds collected in error the same way they received them?
FOLLOWUP: Next, they charged a Returned Item Fee of $39 to my account in response to me taking control and having my bank refuse the second debit from my checking account. I called and asked First Equity to reverse this fee considering their system should have never accepted two identical payments back to back on the same day in the first place. The did agree to reverse the fee, but then informed me they had placed a permanent HOLD on my account.
When I asked why, since I had always made my payments timely and the account now had a $0 balance, they could provide no explanation and told me that I would need to specifically request that the hold be released.By that point I was pretty indifferent to ever using this account again, so I decided to let it ride for a few weeks while I considered what I wanted to do.
About two months later I called back and asked them to release the hold. They said someone from the credit review department would be calling me. Didn't hear from them for several weeks, then received a letter in the mail June telling me they had closed my account "due to inactivity."
Somebody please tell me how I was supposed to use the account when they had a permanent hold placed on it? The HOLD and subsequent account closure smells distinctly like retaliation for paying off the account balance, in full, and for getting my money back from them by going through my bank to extract it after First Equity refused to send the ill-gotten funds back to me in a timely manner.
I have never had a credit card company close an account due to inactivity for only two months.in Feb. There was the double $8000 payment activity, in March there was that pesky returned item fee, in April the undeserved returned item fee was reversed, in May I requested the hold be released, and by June my account was closed due to inactivity?! Puhlease. All I can say is good riddance.
Since my account with them was only open for about two years, I'm certain their action to close my account has negatively impacted my credit scores. I never missed a payment to them and was never late, paid my account in full, have excellent credit with my other creditors with FICO scores close to 800, and this is how they treat a solid customer? Judging from the other complaints posted all over the internet about this company, my experience is the tip of the iceberg. These guys smell all the way from Georgia to my home state of Colorado, even though the winds are usually blowing east. That is one pungent odor.
First Equity Card's business practices have a distinctly MAFIOSO aroma. They are usurious, retaliatory, punitive, fraudulent, and downright irrational. Somebody needs to shut them down and somebody else needs to sue them for lots and lots of money. This is a white collar crime organization masquerading as a credit card company and a bank.
If you don't have an account with this company, don't get one. Ever. If you do have an account with them, do whatever it takes to move the money out to another legitimate bank, or pay it off, and close your account (though once you pay them off, they'll probably take care of the account closure for you, as they did with me.) We are consumers and we decide which businesses succeed, and which ones fail. Make them fail folks.
Tell all the small business people you know and don't let them use, deceive, extort, lie or otherwise profit from you or anyone you know. Stop begging them to do the right thing, because they won't, and it gives them the delusion that they have power over you that they don't really have. Take control and you'll feel better about yourself and your small business.
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