We have had a couple of business credit card accounts through Elan, as that is what our bank uses. From the start they have been very difficult to work with. The web-based interface is misleading and very different from what other credit card companies use.
The other thing is that they operate on a four-week period rather than monthly, which we learned the hard way. (They are the only ones doing this that I know of.) It caused us to miss a payment some months ago, which we quickly paid off along with the late fee, and thus zeroed out the account. We did not use it for months thereafter.
We received a promo offer for 0% interest with the typical 4% service fee, which we used to buy inventory. What the letter did not say is that they raised our rate to 30% and that there was no grace period; interest would accrue immediately. That put us over our limit, and so there was another fee for them to collect.
When I phoned them about that, they would not budge, stating that because it is in the cardholder's agreement, we should have known we were asking for a 30% promo rate. They felt there was no need for the promo letter to be accurate about what the actual interest rate would be, since the letters are processed months in advance and, they say, before they raised us to the penalty rate. That is our problem, they say, not theirs.
We are paying off and canceling all our accounts with them and have notified our bank of the sheer difficulty of dealing with them, in hopes it will drop them. I really like the people at our regional bank, who are good people, and hope they might find a better alternative eventually.
Elan, on the other hand, makes an effort to be difficult so they can collect fees. They are not the only ones doing this in the financial industry these days, but they have raised the bar.
The reason for my report is to let other people beware and to encourage others to call Elan out if they have had similar experiences.
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