Bumblefucked by Orchard Bank
In the quest to un-bumblefuck ourselves we have been trying to pay off credit cards. On March 31st I made a $400 payment to an Orchard Bank credit card. The limit of said evil card is $1950. The evil interest rate is somewhere around 21%. The balance at the time was $999 and some change.
Today, I sign on to check the account and notice that the available balance is not correct. For a moment, I panic thinking that someone has bumblefucked us further with identity theft.
So, I go to “pending charges” and see a $399 pending charge from HCS. I’m like ‘wtf?’ I click on that. HCS = Household Card Services, aka evil Orchard Bank. It is a freaking payment hold! And why?!?
My theory – they are trying to keep the average daily balance up so that they finance charge will be higher.
Wankers.
And that is reason #3,412 that credit cards are evil.
7 comments
Thanks for the link to my post, but more importantly:
Ouch! Orchard Bank! One of the evilest of the evil. Sorry you’re stuck dealing with them!
I know! Luckily it will be paid off soon!
[...] in April I discussed being bumblefucked by Orchard Bank and their sneaky payment holding tactics. Well, it is with great pleasure that I can now tell [...]
I too like you made a small $30 payment last week that they are holding $39 that is in my pending charges “until it clears the bank”, well needless to say that this payment has cleared three days ago but still pending on my orchard bank and since then I have made another $80 payment yesterday that they are holding $79 in my pending which now adds up to $118 pending. This is ridiculous. Then banks can’t hose us on home loans anymore so now they are desperate to find anyway to make up for their habits of robbing the consumer.
I also use Household/Orchard Bank. I’ve been using this card the most because the cash rewards were really good. My paymnents use to clear in three days about a month ago. Now it’s a minimum of seven days if not more. When I get my bills switched to another card I’m going to quit using these assholes. I’m also going to check with the FTC on them. Dirty bastards.
This happened to me with a $600 pmnt to HHB. I wanted to go on vacation with a “c;ear” card in case I needed it… After speaking with several CSRs I was told by someone that the reason they do this is that one of the profiles of one of the ID theft scams was to pay off a card, then immediatly charge the max before the payment is refused by the bank. The wait period is 3 – 10 buisness days for a check to clear, and then an additional 3-5 for a “fraud” chargeback. This means that it can take up to 15 days before they release a hold. [mine took 9 days]
[...] she keeps it paid off, I came across something interesting: I would see a pending transaction from HCS, and I didn’t know what the hell it was. Some other blogger found out and posted it, and I [...]
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