Citibank

or Citigroup...

We bought a washer from Sears -12 months no interest... This is the second month they charged a carrying charge of $29 that it took a couple of hours in phone calls to get rid of... What they did was charge no interest on the washer, but took our payments and put them on the washer, even though we specified that the payment was for two things - my regular charge and the washer. We specified how the money should be applied. They put it all on the washer, then charged $29 because the regular account hadn't received any payment, $58 for 2 months. We found it could be done with a payment reversal where the $160 a month would go $100 for the washer and $60 for the regular account. This took phone calls 2 months in a row till I paid off the regular account, and have just a small amount left on the washer. We bought the washer in late August and payments were always a few days early. Washer will be paid off in January.

Looked in Wikipedia to find out more about Citygroup and found this gem in the article (among other things like the feds owned Citigroup for a while, maybe still does, who knows): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup#Allegations_of_theft_from_customer_accounts

On August 26, 2008 it was announced that Citigroup agreed to pay nearly $18 million in refunds and fines to settle accusations by California Attorney General Jerry Brown that it wrongly took funds from the accounts of credit card customers. Citigroup would pay $14 million of restitution to roughly 53,000 customers nationwide. A three-year investigation found that Citigroup from 1992 to 2003 used an improper computerized "sweep" feature to move positive balances from card accounts into the bank's general fund, without telling cardholders.[163]

Brown said in a statement that Citigroup "knowingly stole from its customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased, when it designed and implemented the sweeps...When a whistleblower uncovered the scam and brought it to his superiors, they buried the information and continued the illegal practice."[163]

Those cockroachers knew what they were doing. I wonder how many Sears customers even noticed the late fee - not carrying charges (about $3-4, which I expected - but not a heavy late fee.