For years, Eleanor Sears used her husband’s Carson’s credit card when shopping at the department store.
Then the Morgan Park neighborhood resident tried to buy some items and was denied. The saleswoman at the Evergreen Park store told her that because her name was not on the card, she could not use it, Sears said.
Upset, she went home and cut up the card. Sears wrote a letter to Carson’s instructing the company to cancel the account, she said.
“She said, ‘We’re never going to shop in that store again,'” said husband Frederick. “When she says that, she means it.”
Over the next five years, the couple made no purchases on the account and thought the incident was behind them. Then they received a bill from Carson’s for $49.98 for men’s clothing someone bought May 4.
Eleanor Sears said she called Carson’s and the credit card company, Comenity. Both asked for her Social Security number, which she refused to give.
She told the Problem Solver, “The account was closed over five years and I am reluctant to provide my Social Security number.”
Unwilling to give the department store her personal information, she wrote to the CEO of Bon-Ton Stores, which owns Carson’s. She never heard back.
Because the couple refused to pay the bill, the credit card company sent the charges to a collection agency. Soon, collection agents were calling the couple’s house up to a dozen times a day, they said.
In early August, Frederick Sears went to the Carson’s store in Evergreen Park and asked the store manager for help. A few weeks later the store manager told the couple’s daughter that the credit card number had been reissued to someone else and the bill had been sent to her husband by mistake, Eleanor Sears said.
The store manager “informed us that she would take care of the situation and the charges would be removed from our name,” Eleanor Sears said. But the charges weren’t removed, and the collection calls continued.
Fed up with the incessant calls, the couple on Monday emailed “What’s Your Problem?”
“Since early September I have had abdominal surgery and I am home recuperating,” Eleanor Sears said. “These calls continue daily, including Sunday. I don’t know what else to do. The charges are not mine and no one seems willing to help without our Social Security numbers.”
Frederick Sears said he just wanted the calls to stop.
“I talked to one of them,” he said of the callers. “She said ‘This is going to affect your credit.’ I said, ‘Hey, I’m 82 years old. I don’t give a damn about my credit.’ They still bill us every month and we ignore it. It’s a pain in the backside.”
The Problem Solver called Kim George, a spokeswoman for Bon-Ton Stores. On Wednesday, George emailed to say the calls should soon stop.
“Mr. Sears has been issued a full credit as of yesterday for the charge on the account,” George wrote. “Our credit card provider has removed the late fees and finance charges from Mr. Sears’ account. These credits will reduce the account balance to zero and should end the collection calls within 24 hours.”
In addition, George said, Comenity sent a letter to Sears asking that he contact the credit card provider to close the account. George said the account must remain open “until either written correspondence or a phone call from Mr. Sears is received.”
Frederick Sears said his wife sent Comenity a letter four years ago asking to cancel the account.
“She sent them several letters,” he said. “But we’ll send them another one. What do we care?”
He said he’s happy the calls will stop, but he joked that the resolution will have an adverse effect on the economy.
“It gave these people work,” Frederick Sears said. “They could call us (several) times a day and they got paid.”
facebook.com/chitribproblem
Twitter @wyp_tribune
