Opinion: Credit card saga continues for years

Being on the government’s consumer protection listing has pretty well put an end to telemarketing calls from credit card companies.

We only have one credit card and are satisfied with our relationship with the company.

Credit card hassles

Unnecessary marketing notwithstanding, my credit card company is a paragon of perfection compared with another one I think of as the credit card from the Far Side.

Let me explain. A few years ago, I was doing some consulting work, guest lecturing and writing. For tax purposes, I opened a separate bank account and obtained a credit card. Over time, these ventures faded away.

Having made no recent charges, a credit card bill came with a zero balance, and I sent the bill back with a cancellation note. I presumed this put a lid on our business transactions.

As events were to prove, it became – drum roll, please – the credit card that would not die!

Shortly after I thought I had canceled, I received a new card. I called a phone number on the back of the card, telling the operator that nothing had changed, and I still wanted to cancel. I cut up the card. The company had finally figured out that our business divorce was final.

A song and dance

You may already have guessed the next stanza of the saga.

Another new credit card arrived. I foolishly thought that by ignoring the card, it would go away. Over time, new cards would arrive, I would utter a few comments unsuitable for this publication, cut the cards into tiny pieces and try to forget the whole thing.

Then the unexpected occurred. I received a phone call from the company to the effect that there had been a request for activity on my account, which she questioned because it had been dormant so long. I explained the long and twisted history of the card, thanking her for her diligence in protecting the account. Her closing comment was that she would cancel the card.

Fast forward to the present: The company holding on so firmly to me as a customer was taken over by another one.

I’ll bet you’re thinking the new guys believed I was still a customer. Good thinking.

I began getting all sorts of cardholder information, which I ignored. However, I didn’t ignore a $39.99 bill that a travel service company charged to my account. In a near simmering rage, I called the phone number on the bill and asked how access to my account could have been gained, and why they accepted the charge from my oft-canceled card. Following a lot of “Golly-gee, er, I don’t know” talk, I was informed that it would be removed from my statement.

Oh, by the way, the operator said he would cancel the card. Sure he did.

Next month, a bill showing a mysterious $3.99 service charge was added, then removed from the bill, leaving it with a zero balance. But it was still alive.

My latest song and dance was a request to fill out information to bring fraud charges against the people who used my account number.

I neither know nor care how it will end. I do know that when this outfit takes you on as a customer it is for life – like it or not.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.