What's On Your Mind? Chase Mortgage, Mystery Charges, GE

Mistakes happen, and when they do, they can be frustrating.

"Yesterday I received a notice from Farmers Insurance that my mortgage insurance was past due, and I needed to pay over $500 all at once, or it would be cancelled the first part of April," Nikoli, of Fallon, Nev., told ConsumerAffairs.com.

Nikoli says Chase Mortgage was supposed to be making the payments, but apparently hasn't been since September. Nikoli said he contacted Chase and a customer service representative assured him a payment will be sent immediately.

"I just don't need this grief," Nikoli said. "I'm 72 years old, very much disabled, and mostly homebound. I've been paying the mortgage, as agreed, every month, and have never been late."

Mystery

Does anyone know what Acquirer Operations is? Tom, of Moreno Valley, Calif., thinks its some kind of negative option scam after he found an unexplained charge on his credit card.

"I just went to my checking account yesterday and saw a charge for $10.00 by Acquirer Operations dated 3 14 2011 and charged to my checking account on 3 19 2011,  for what I do not know," Tom told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I cannot track them down for a phone number or an address."

The bank told Tom to cancel his credit card, but before he does, he might try contacting Visa. It's likely Acquirer Operations is not a company, but rather a description of some type of bank fee. When you Google Acquirer Operations you'll find a description of a banking training course on "acquirer operations."

"This course explains how an acquiring bank interacts with the VISA international Network and how to operate the SparrowVisa Acquirer system to control these interactions," the description says in part.

Tom should have a conversation with someone else at his bank or call his credit card company.

What's cooking?

Vee, of Centralia, Wash., is doubly irritated with GE. The first irritation occurred when the glass top electric stove quit working last year. Instead of having it repaired, she said she stored things in it. That leads to the second irritation.

"Today I woke up to a smoke filled house," Vee said. "Apparently the self clean mode spontaneously came on during the night and melted all I had in sitting in the oven! I was lucky I woke up when I did as this could have caused a serious fire!"

True, the self-cleaning feature should not have come on by itself. But it's probably not a good idea to store flammable items in a non-working stove.

Not so hot

In early January, Jerry of Sun City Center, Fla. bought a Samsung range. After noticing it wasn't heating properly, he bought a range temperature gauge and discovered that, when the pre-heat alarm rings, the oven was consistently 75 degrees below the set temperature.

"It takes the range an additional 20 to 30 minutes to reach the set temperature which negatively effects the cook times," Jerry told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I called Samsung and was advised that this was a common problem and to set the temp up an additional 75 degrees. This would be fine except after 20-30 minutes the oven temperature would be 75 degrees too hot."

Jerry said he found the advice less than helpful. Since the stove is under factory warranty, Jerry can insist that the temperature thermostat be fixed.