Around March 16th, I got a friendly call from Dell Financial Services (DFS from now on) informing me that I owed them some money from a missed payment. I was a bit perplexed, given that I know I paid them through my banks online Bill Pay. Logged in, checked the transactions...yup, there it...oh. I typed the DFS account number wrong. Oops.
But money was still withdrawn. Huh.
I tell the rep the situation: money's been removed from my checking account, but it went to the wrong DFS account. Rep says it's no problem, they'll credit the account and remove related finance charges and late fees...oh. That DFS account number doesn't exist. Huh. Fax over a statement from your bank, they say, that shows the transaction occurred, and we'll take care of it. I'm not able to do it that afternoon, unfortunately, but I send something out on the 19th.
They claim not to get it. Odd. I send another copy later that afternoon, call in, and they verify that yes, it's been received. That's great.
I get a call about a week later, inquiring about this issue again. I explain that I sent a fax last week and that it was verified as received. This rep tells me that there are no notes on the account to indicate that anything was received regarding this transaction. Rage slowly starts building. I fax again, now on the 25th, and make sure the attention is to a "Payment Research Department." I call, and supposedly everything's hunky dory.
Soon, I get a call from a DIFFERENT number, also claiming to be DFS, and also wondering what's going on with the account (according to WHOIS, it's legit). I've told them that I've already tried faxing something twice already; they give me another fax number to use, and an actual individual for the Attention field. Once again, I fax over what I have; this is now the 30th.
It's another few days before the first Dell number calls back, again wondering why the account isn't current. Cue more rage. Somehow, it suddenly dawns on them that my simple printout of the Bill Pay confirmation page isn't enough, that they need more detailed information about the payment transaction. I put the issue forth to my bank, therefore, and they try to contact Dell on their own about what's needed.
I soon learn that they're waiting on Dell to get back to them with whatever information is required to be submitted. I call DFS in their place, and relate the information I was given to my bank. They immediately send a detailed transaction log to DFS, and inform me to wait 3-5 business days for it to go through. It is now the 10th of April.
I call DFS again on the 17th. The rep, and later a manager, inform me that an 'internal department' handles the faxes, that it takes them a few business days to get the information to the relevant departments, and that no, they haven't received anything yet. I want to kill something by this point. The manager informs me that she will call on Tuesday - today - if nothing has come through.
Today, the 21st, DFS informs me that there are NO notes on the account whatsoever about any faxes, so apparently the ones from before never got anywhere. Of course not. Send another fax, they say, and wait 3-5 business days, and we'll call you when something pops up. Which, given the apparent state of this 'internal department', could be never.
Meanwhile, the calls continue, mostly from this second number, which leaves one or two messages on my machine: silence, or an automated message that cannot seem to fill in the blanks in its script with the relevant information from the account ("We are calling to confirm that with account number is past due in the amount of please call at your earliest convenience.")
Argh.
Thanks for sloughing through that. It's not very pretty or coherent, perhaps, but I'm holding back much rage at this point D: