I get a cold call that my vehicle warranty is about to expire. It happens that my car is now just 2 years old, and I thought it was covered for 7 years by Dodge. Hmm. But I don't want my vehicle warranty to expire.
I look them up online as they're talking to me. They have a nice, shiny website! I can cancel in 30 days. And I just got a new credit card that gives me bonus miles for every purchase, so I'm eager to start using it. I give them the credit card # - I'll get $500 in gas coupons and gas is SO expensive! Besides, I can always cancel it.
I must have gotten the package in the mail - or maybe not. Mail is kind of iffy at my house. I don't remember. I DO remember trying to cancel and getting talked out of it. I could cancel next week if I wanted to.
Of course I forgot. For some reason, we were over the limit EVERY month on our new credit card. I would pore over my husband's purchases, item by item (it was split up by his and mine), totally spacing on the fact that I had a recurring purchase that I had forgotten about!
Finally last month we started getting phone calls from "MEPCO" that our payment was late. We may have gotten them before and said don't be silly, we don't owe anything to anyone called "MEPCO". But last month we got a LOT of calls. Enough for us to take it seriously, ask them who they were, and they said "oh, we're just the finance company." Then we got worried, because we have NOTHING with a finance company!
Next we got a letter from MEPCO, which I wish I could find, because I have no idea what it said. So I googled MEPCO and found this site. It gave the connection between MEPCO and Safe Ride, and at that time, www.saferide.com was still a nice shiny website. None of the 800 numbers on the website worked, but they did give an email address for customer service. I emailed that address and asked to be contacted re my safe ride warranty.
Somehow I had discovered that it was the new rewards card that was getting billed every month (and costing us extra fees every month). I checked MY statement - these were all electronic statements, so it was easy to miss - and I hadn't been using the card AT ALL. But there it was every month, $108.33 to MEPCO in Illinois.
Next (and by this time things were happening quickly) someone called me back from Safe Ride in response to my email. I said I wanted to cancel. He said "and lose your investment?" The call came at an awful time of day (and I hadn't put my phone number in my email) so I took down his "direct, private line" and hung up. (He said they'd been having trouble with their 800 numbers... Yeah, right.)
Another month went by - gasp - and I realized we hadn't heard from them because we were on top of the credit card bill and not charging anything else. Today I tried to get the credit card company to stop sending the payments - they can't until I send a certified letter to MEPCO. Anyone got a good address? There is a good website as of today (September 15) www.mepco.com.
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