I enrolled my child at the Kiddie Kingdom daycare center which he attended for about three months. I decided that this was not the best place for my child to be, due to reasons that I will not even get into today. That is a different story for a different day. Any how I complied with their contract terms and gave them a timley termination of service notice. On the last day of my child attending the center I went to pick him up and I approached the workers that were there and asked if I could please pay my remaining balance of $194.00. The worker that was there responded by telling me that she was not allowed to run the credit card machine and that there was no one available to take my payment. So I figured, okay then they will bill me. That was in June. Well many moons later... May. I recieved a bill from the center for over $800.00! I was in total shock. I called the center and the bookeeper told me that over $600.00 of the balance was simply late fees that had accrued and that they were entitled to recieve payment for them. After she threatened me with legal action and collections she agreed to send me a new bill waiving the late charges and reflecting the balance of only $194.00. Again months went by no bills or telephone calls from them. (My contact info remained the same during this time) October I recieve a letter from collections for over $800.00.
I went ahead and dug up some the original contract that states " Any remaing balances shall be processed in small claims court after four weeks." To me that means that I should have been taken to court over the remaining balance plus four weeks of late fees. They have initiated collections activity on my account that may seriously damage my credit. I complained with the Better Business Bureau and after several months of waiting for a response, they sent me a notice stating that my case was being closed because Kiddie Kingdom is maintaing their position. I feel that I am being ripped off because the amount of late charges are excessive and it seems like some type of scam or extortion attempt. I feel that I may be better off going to court and have a judge decide what is fair and lawfull. I did offer to settle for $194.00 plus 4 weeks late fees, but apperantly the feel the need to recover money that they did not render any type of service for. Unless they are charging for headaches.
0 comments