Credit Crisis

So Sallie and I did one of those 0% interest, 0 payments for a year deals when we bought our furniture. Everything was going according to plan. We were making payments. We were on schedule to pay off the furniture right on time.

So our year with no payments no interest ended in March. We received the March bill, paid the last $100 and shipped the bill a week before it was due. Wash our hands of that crap right?

Well then why did a bill show up a few weeks later wanting to charge us $400? Because in fine print, on the crease of our last bill it said that our promotion ends on March 2nd even though the last bill was due March 18th. Even though we paid the bill in full, we were about a week later than when the promotion ended. They screwed us.

So we tried to call a representative to see if we could talk sense into someone. Of course we could only get recordings. On further inspection of our last bill... again in fine lightly colored print... it said to dispute any charges we need to write a letter. They will review our dispute and write back whether we owe them or not.

So the bill is due in a few days and today Sallie called them to find out "what's up?" and to make sure they weren't going to charge us any late fees or anything while this case is being reviewed.

They said that this is under review and it could take 30-60 days for a response. Oh yeah, by the way, if we don't decide in your favor you have to pay the interest on all the time it took for us to review your case.

So I imagine somewhere in South Carolina, there is a guy with a rubber "denied" stamp, inking hundreds of cases and throwing them in a "mail in 45 days" pile.

I don't want to pay anything because that's an admission of fault and I feel it can hurt us. I don't want to get hit with $200 in interest either.

So anyone with any advice on how we can attack these jerks if they rule against us or how we can prevent these idiots from charging us unfair charges, please chime in.