Credit Card @ MindSay

Last week, I received an offer in the mail from Bank of America for their "Credit Protection Plus" program.  You know - one of those lousy programs which offer you protection if you lose your job or get divorced.  They are a joke (as actually qualifying for relief is very difficult), and no financially wise person would enroll.

So, completely unrelated to the offer, I decided that I would request a credit line increase.  I grabbed the envelope and called the 800 number on it.  The nice lady asked me if I'd like to enroll in the Credit Protection Plus program, I kindly said no, but I'd like to request a credit line increase.  She said she'd be more then happy to help.  Five minutes later, I had been approved for an increase, and she wished me good day.

Today I received a letter - "Congratulations and thank you for enrolling in Credit Protection Plus."

GRRRRR.

I'm guessing my fatal mistake was to call the 800 number that came with the offer -- but in NO WAY does that give them permission to enroll me in the program.

The worst part is that this has happened to other Bank of America customers.  This person is just as angry as I am.  When she called in, they told her "I see that you were just enrolled last week. You should read through the benefits before deciding."  Ugh.  She clearly DECLINED the offer when she called up initially, then they argued with her when she wanted to cancel.

From another source, consumeraffairs.com:

"I received in the mail today (2/19/08) from Bank of America, a welcome package for the Credit Protection Plus Program linked to my Bank of America credit card. I never requested to be part of such a program, and after seeing that I would be charged monthly, 95 cents per $100 of my balance, I definitely wanted to end participation in this program and figure out why I had been automatically signed up for such a program without my consent. I called the program phone line: 1.888.668.6938. A representative told me that on 2/11/08, I had spoken to a representative about the program and opted into the program, thus I was receiving the welcome package and monthly charges would start soon."

Here is another one:

There is no way I signed up for Credit Protection Plus. After digging further, Bank of America uses a third party company called CIC which administers the plan. I was charged two big fees before realizing they fraudulantly enrolled me in the plan and the last charge pushed me over my credit limit which alerted the credit bureaus that I am over the limit.

As of now, for me, they told me the department that handles "those issues" is closed right now.  I was unable to leave a message for them, and they don't have e-mail ("sorry, we don't have that technology" - lol).  Funny that the department that enrolls you in the program seems to be open 24/7, though. 

UPDATE: I've created a Credit Protection Plus Fraud Resource Wiki at PBwiki.  If you've been victimized by BoA, add yourself to the list and lets get organized.

We are one step closer to being completely out of debt! Well, except for the house, but don't most people have a house payment for most of their lives anyway? Today I paid off a credit card with a balance of $7279.17! Tomorrow, because I forgot to call today, I am cancelling this card. It feels so good to get rid of this debt! This card has a very high limit so I'd rather just get rid of it then keep it on our credit reports as open, available credit. We have another card with a zero balance, and a high limit that Dale will have to cancel when he gets home as it's in his name. There is still a balance of just over $9000 on our last card. I will have that paid off before Dale gets home in early August. He threatened to return to Iraq, instead of retiring, if I didn't get the credit cards paid off before he came home. Lots of tears (from me of course) many hurtful things said (also from me), and promises to make sure the cards were paid off (again, from me), he gave in and said he will definately retire from the Army when he comes home. This is the only good thing that has come out of his being deployed to Iraq. Fifteen months of tax free money means 2 years of enormous tax refunds, plus the extra money he is making while being over there = getting out of debt.

 

Now, if we can just win the lottery so I can get that new van, he can get a new truck, we could pay off the house, and Dale could retire permenately!

 

If it seems like I'm braging, well, yeah, I guess I am. We've had credit card debt for nearly 10 years, and it just feels good to be getting rid of it. Not to mention the fact that if Dale doesn't find a job right away we wouldn't even be able to make the minimum payments on these cards!

I'm at work, thinking I should really wear my retainer at night, my teeth are starting to get misaligned again ><

Everybody is being really supportive to me, and I'm thinking about spending a night or two at my mom's, probably the sooner the better...

I'm just fatigued lately, the stress and not being able to sleep really sucks, when I start to fall asleep I have a coughing fit because Cal gave me his throat infection :(:(

And another thing I'm stressed about, Cal has a version of leukoplakia on his tongue (look it up, it's thoroughly gross, but very interesting) and the doctor tested it and found out it's pre-cancerous ...:(  Cal is going to get cough drops, medicated to kill the lesion...eww, lol

Other than that, my life is pretty stable..I'm still very sad I can't go to school this quarter, but I needed a break off of it anyway, then this way I'll be able to save up money for next quarter and help to do my part in paying the credit card down :):)

A lot of my stress has been revolving around money, I can't wait till that goes away, Joe moving in wil remove a lot of the financial stress, but I don't know how Cal will take it, we shall see...always :)

my 2007 calendar looks like this...

ski trip.
CA trip.
florida trip. (I think florida calls to me more than CA does)  oh no....hurricanes.  you can never win.  I have fond memories of FL.  it was an awesome trip, the laid back and relaxed feel.  palm trees, warm sunny weather, there's an air of feeling totally freeee. 
I saw my first gecko. 

a friend of mine, she brought back a guy to our hotel room in the wee hours of the morn and they pretty much had sex in the bathroom while I was sleeping.  I should have suspected something when I saw the guy was "visiting" so early in the morning.  my friend didn't tell me until a year later.  ahhh florida was nice.  and freeing for her too I guess. 

so thank goodness for plastic.   it seems there's a lot of credit card theft going on lately.  my roomate and my work supervisor both had their credit cards used for unauthorized purchases for some crazy items this past week.   if you think about it, it's the easiest theft there is...... that credit card # goes through so many people's hands.  all the information anyone needs is right there.   we're all on an honor system basically.  call me dumb, but should it be that easy?   I never quite grasped why such private information really is extremely non private.