Katherine of Parkville, MD on May 2, 2009
I was a very loyal customer of Lane Bryant for far over approximately 30 years. I say this amount because my children, which the youngest one is now 38, were youngsters at the time. I worked very hard on trying to keep my payments up. Yes, I fell behind from time to time, but I always got caught up. Well, approximately two years ago, my account was transferred to a Woman Within account. Even before the transfer, any new purchases I made, I would write out a check for the total amount instead of adding to my credit amount. I do this with all orders that I make now because I am up in age, now 81 years old, and I have been trying to pay everything off so that I will not leave a bill for my children when I pass on. With making purchases like this, I would often miscalculate the correct amount and so I would often get small credits or checks from the various companies I was dealing with. With handling my business like this, you would assume that my bills were decreasing instead of increasing.
When Woman Within took over Lane Bryant, I never made another purchase from them because I really did not like what I saw in Woman Within's catalogs. So the only thing that I should have been paying on that account should have been my old Lane Bryant purchases. Well, the bills that I was receiving from Woman Within seemed to never go down. First I thought it was because my payments would often be late because the only income I have is from Social Security and my check would not be in my bank account until the third of the month. Getting frustrated, I wrote them a note trying to explain my situation. I thought maybe they would or could change my due date, but, nothing changed. The amount due seemed to be growing more and more and I just could not understand why. I was not making any purchases, so why was my amount due increasing.
I finally asked my daughter to see if she could figure out what was going on. She thought it had to be because of the purchases I made. I told her that I never made any purchases and that I was just trying to pay the bill off. It seemed like I should have paid the bill off by now, because, it was not too high. She saw where there were numerous purchases on my account. I never noticed the purchases because, by fault of my own, I never read the statements. I figured there was no use since I wasn't purchasing anything. I would just tear off the stub and write a check out for whatever amount was due. I should have paid more attention, but I trusted that the bill was correct. Well, with more searching into the mysterious purchases, we found out that Woman Within mistakenly combined my information with the information of another customer. Her name, address and telephone number was simular to mines. When this was discovered, I tried to repeatedly tell them that the purchases were not mine.
After their first investigation into the matter, they said that the purchases were received by me and it was proven by UPS records. I then went online to UPS and put the tracking number that was given to me from Woman Within onto their page and the only info that UPS gave online was the drop off time, area dropped off, city and state. Well, like I said before, the other customer lived in my same city and state, so of course they (Woman Within), would assume that it was me that received the package. So, I then called UPS and asked for the exact address that the package was delivered to and they gave me the address of the other customer. I then wrote Woman Within back trying to, yet again, explain to them that I, in fact, did not receive the packages in question. I, again tried to also explain that I had not made ANY purchases from Woman Within and instead, the only bill that I should have been paying on was my Lane Bryant bill.
Finally, one day, after numerous correspondences and telephone calls, I received a letter in February 2009 stating that I was owed $165.80 and my balance was now $0. I really felt that they owed me more, but, I was just relieved that the ordeal was over, (so I thought). I even spoke with a representative that stated to me that the bill was finally issued to the correct customer. The following month, I received a statement with the same purchases that I had disputed, on there. I had to start calling again and a representative verified that the other woman was billed for the purchases and so I responded to her that now they were trying to get a double payment. I had to put my dispute in writing again, and explain this whole ordeal over again, before they would investigate it, yet again.
Well, today, May 1, 2009, I received a letter stating thatthey already applied a credit of $423.83 on 1/19/2009 and as of today, my account balance is $456.94! I have been fighting this since October 2008 and it seems that no one will really look into this case. I do not know what to do now. I have even thought of going to this woman's house and confronting her, but that could turn ugly. Furter more, who is to say that she hasn't been paying this same bill, too. So, I don't know if this is also a case of fraud, but I do know that I have been paying for clothes that I have never seen or purchased. I need help. I think I need a lawyer, but my Social Security check barely pays my way as it is. Can someone help me or at least point me in the right direction?
