phragmentation

I now remember why I don’t shop at Costco and will never live Texas. Because DiscoverCard recently slashed my unused credit limit on their account to below my existing balance (thus causing themselves to accrue an overlimit fee) without notifying me, I had a good reason to pull up my credit report yesterday. While there is nothing in my recent activity that should have caused concern, I see there are still two negative marks on my report that I had worked to clear four years ago when they first appeared.

I dropped my Costco membership in 2003 because I was no longer using it much – driving to Richmond to buy bulk toilet paper for one person was just not worth it. However, in 2004 they charged my non-existent card with another membership fee. And didn’t send an invoice until it was 60 days overdue. I called them and told them the card had been canceled and even paid the fee, and canceled again, but they did the same thing in 2005! I called them again and did not pay the fee, and they agreed to remove it. However, the late payment mark is still on the record…

When P-raw and I lived in Dallas for three months in early 2005, we called TXU to connect the utilities. We requested urgent connection for an extra $89 so we could have heat, as it was January and quite cold. The next day there was no heat or electricity. Or the day after. Or for several days. Every day Patricia called them and they said they had no record of a new account so they created the order again. This went on for several days and finally she checked into a hotel. When I arrived a few days later, we called them again and still no heat or electricity. After an entire week, they finally got around to saving the account information and connecting the services. Needless to say, I was not about to pay the $89 express connection fee after that. When I saw the charge on the bill, I called their customer service and told them the story, but yet again they had no record of anything other than a request for express connection and the fact that they did indeed connect services. When we left three months later, I settled all the bills (nothing was ever paid late) but several months later they started hassling me to pay this last $89. I told them I absolutely would not pay it and wrote to the Texas BBB. They said they would mark it as a charge off, and I would have to write to the credit reporting agencies to have it cleared, which I did.

I know I had to clear these because at the time they appeared I was refinancing my house and this was standing in the way. It looks like Equifax is still showing them. I couldn’t get on the Experian or TransUnion sites — and the Discover site was partially unavailable on Sunday, as well as “unusually high activity” on their customer service lines — big surprise!