I kept getting statements saying I owed them $0.
Six months after I cancelled, somebody called me and asked why I hadn't used the card.
"I no longer have the card. I cancelled it."
"Oh. Okay." She hangs up.
The statements stop coming and in 2002 I move out of state.
Sometime after I moved out of state, there was an $8 charge on the card. I did not see this because I no longer got statements. (And having sent a letter and told a person that I no longer would be using their card, I didn't bother sending them a change of address.)
I did not see this until I applied for a loan a few months ago and got denied because I did not pay this $8 charge that I couldn't possibly have made since I no longer had the card, and hadn't had the card for 2 years at the time the charge was made.
I called the credit card company, and the guy at the customer service desk told me he didn't have the means to look up what the charge was, since it was over six months ago. He told me it was the stupidest thing he ever heard of and to dispute it with a credit report company. (My bank told me to use Experian.)
Oh, and he also told me somebody later paid it, after the charge off, but it sure as heck wasn't me.
But anyway, I disputed it.
They came back and said "Yes, there is indeed a charge."
Yes, I know this, but I want to know how and from where.
So now my charge is preventing me from getting a loan, I don't know where it came from, and nobody's telling me anything about it. It's making me rather frustrated.
Any advice? I really want to get this taken care of.
(Yes, I probably should've figured something went wrong with the "cancellation" after I got some statements and somebody asked about it, but I was 19 and stupid and figured at the least the person I talked to would've done something or other.)
As a side note, on my credit report I also found another credit card that I had never signed up for and never physically had. Freaky. I cancelled that one too.