Consumer complaint received 2022-02-12
Company: Genesis FS Card Services, Inc.
State: MS
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms

Complaint:
This is going to be long and actually covers more issues than the false advertising. I have never had these sort of problems or even heard of others having some of these issues. 

This XXXX money was tight and my wife and I decided to get a credit card to help us make a few purchases and to have money between XXXX and our first paychecks of 2022. I do have bad credit so I knew I was not going to get a prime rate. 

After consideration and research we decided on a Milestone XXXX  card from XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I have screen shots of the XXXX ad we used to link us to the web page that ultimately led to us receiving the card. 

The ad said there was annual fee of between XXXX XXXX XXXX dollars depending on credit score. It also stated the interest rate for those with the worst, bad/poor, credit could be up to 24.9 %. I needed the loan and I also need to rebuild my credit, so we did sign up for and receive the card. When it came we did use it and we did not properly read all the documentation that came with it, I just assumed we got the worst rate and worst annual fee and that was alright with me. I was wrong. The second we used the card it charged a XXXX dollar annual fee, not XXXX dollars like advertised, which also took away that available credit. On top of that when my first bill arrived the APR was 34.9 %. Please continue reading because it gets so much worse and possibly illegal. 

I called the company to make my first payment around the XXXX of XXXX. I had all intention of paying off the card, even though I felt cheated with the advertising and rate. I spoke to a representative and gave them my bank account info and know for a fact I told them the checking account was to be used when they asked. For the record I have always made payments and received my direct deposits with this same account and always told the sender/receiver checking. Im poor thats why I got a high interest credit card, why would I even have money in my savings and why would I use savings to make payments even if I did? Anyway, they charged my savings account and I had to get my bank to refund the ACH fee incurred because of this. I called milestone and told them what happened. They also charged me a late fee because this happened. On the XXXX when I called Milestone I asked that they not charge the account anymore. On the XXXX they attempted to draw again from the savings account. This resulted in another fee from my bank which my bank will not refund because its happened twice now. 

I called milestone again. This time I attempted to record the call but milestone refuses to allow customers to record calls. I even have video proof that there system will not allow calls to go through when you are using a call record app. If you attempt to put your info in while a call is merged it will tell you there is no account with that info. As soon as you try without the merged call it will let you through. They will tell you that you can not record the calls even though the message before connection says they may record the calls. I feel like this should be illegal but I can not say as to whether it is or is not. Also, there is no way to email milestone either, so there is basically no way to have a record of calls. 

Anyway when I did get through to them they told me that they can not stop the second charge from going through even when told not to charge the savings anymore. They said this is automatic. They also deny the fact that I gave them the bank info over the phone and they made a mistake. They claim I must have done this myself online but I have never even set up the online account to do so let alone actually paid online. 

I would like this resolved. I would like milestone to allow me to pay off the debt and close the account by paying only the amount I actually borrowed, I will even pay a fair annual fee ( between XXXX XXXX XXXX dollars as was advertised ) and the advertised interest rate ( 24.9  % ) I also ask they deduct XXXX dollars from my debt so I may pay the ACH fee I incurred at my bank due to their error. 

I honestly think they charged the savings account on purpose so they could ad the fees for bouncing a payment and being late. Given the false advertising and no way to record correspondence via phone or email its not a stretch of the imagination. 

Finally, this card also allows you to overdraft it like a checking account. When you have no credit available it will let you make a few more, low dollar, charges at an even higher interest rate.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation