What's On Your Mind? Midas, ADT, Fast Cash Advance

Stuart, of Milwaukee, Wis., seems like one of those “old school” guys who is always checking up on people he pays to do work.

“I took my sons car for a regular oil change on June 27,” Stuart told ConsumerAffairs.com. “Midas has an oil change/free tire rotation coupon and they did a great oil change.”

But how about the tire rotation?

“I mark my tires to make sure they rotate them, and of course they did not,” Stuart said. “But they did want me to spend another $700 on two new ball joints and an outer tie rod and alignments. Somehow they can't rotate tires but they want me to trust them to do the other work?”

Pretty ingenious. We take vehicles in to have work performed and just assume it gets done. Stuart, however, checks up on the mechanics.

Alarming development

If you rent your home, should you have a commercial alarm system? Not unless you read the contract very, very carefully.

 “I moved to a rental house that had an ADT security alarm installed,” said Denise, of Santo Tomas, Costa Rica. “In order to change the alarm code, authorized person and emergency contacts I had to change the contract to my name.”

Once the contract was in Denise's name, she assumed full responsibility for the system. For a renter, that's not a good situation.

“Now, that I've moved out, ADT is telling me I can't get out of the contract because they're treating this as a new contract and I have to keep the system for a minimum of three years or pay 90 percent of the remaining payments!”

Denise's mistake was putting the contract in her name. It's probably something she should have worked out with her landlord, paying for the system in addition to her rent. Her landlord could have changed the contact information on her behalf. It's always risky taking on a long-term commitment for equipment or services when you don't know how long you will live in a particular location.

Bad behavior

It's never a good idea, under any circumstances, to take out a payday loan. If you are living on so tight a budget that you need emergency cash, it's very hard to pay it back – without taking out another  payday loan. But Brian, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., said he was able to pay Fast Cash Advance back in full.

“But then the company started taking even more money out of my bank account,” Brian told ConsumerAffairs.com. “My bank considered it fraud and refunded the money because they had no right to it. Now it is three years later and they are harassing me by phone claiming they are going to garnish my bank account for thousands of dollars and threatening to arrest me. Today they called and told my wife they needed to serve me with a summons for a law suit and were coming to reposes our truck. They did not leave a name or number to call back. When they call they curse and yell at me that I need to pay the bill. But the bill is already paid off. I am ready to call the police because they are threatening and know where I live.”

If the company's debt collectors are doing what Brian describes, they are clearly and grossly violating the law. They are not allowed to make threats or be abusive. Brian should contact New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office and file a complaint.