Normally, I would keep personal finances off the social media grid, but this story needs to be shared and published everywhere possible so people know what they are getting into. I’ve had the Reward Zone Mastercard that Best Buy offers for years. In December of 2010 I decided it was time to pay it off and they deposited the check on January 1, 2011. That’s a good feeling, right? Paying off a credit card, one less thing looming over my head. If I only knew how difficult things would be afterwards…

In February I received a statement showing that I still owed money. I called them, they pulled up the account (after the standard 20 minutes of entering my account number, last 4 of my SSN, blood type, mother’s maiden name, high school mascot, what I had for lunch, and the name of my first unborn child), said they saw what the problem was, and they would take care of it. Awesome. That wasn’t so bad.

In March the FreeCreditReport.com app on my phone notified me that my credit was dinged. By the time I got home to pull up the paperwork and call HSBC, I received two calls and a letter from a collection agency. I’m going to call this the Chorus because it happened repeatedly. I called HSBC and they told me I needed to speak with the collection agency. I called the agency, explained things, and they directed me back to HSBC. Do you see how this is going? Two hours later, I heard the same thing: “Oh I’m sorry, Mr. Dotson. I see what’s going on. It wasn’t properly processed. I’ll take care of this now and you’ll receive a notice in the mail in about two weeks that states things have been cleared up.” Awesome.

April rolled around. For the sake of typing, let’s just say it was a repeat of March.

May was a repeat of March and April.

June was a repeat of March, April, and May. I let them know that they were still dinging my credit and I wanted it all to be corrected. Ha!

July’s repeat was a very heated conversation. Well, several conversations actually. Here’s the cool part: on July 22, 2011 I received the fabled notice in the mail that my account was marked “settled in full” as of January 2, 2011 and that all credit agencies would be notified. What a relief!

August arrived and you guessed it, collection notice in the mail. Another two hours on the phone. For those of you who know me, you can imagine how irate I was at this time.

September is here now. Leaves changing colors, decrease in temperature, and another statement for the credit card. Today, I talked with Charlene with the Agency Support Team and she assured me she would get it taken care of and notify the credit bureaus. I kindly asked her to send me a notice in the mail and she said it would look just like the one I’d already received. I told her that was fine, I still wanted one.

As soon as the call was over, I filed complaints with Equifax and am in the midst of filing them with TransUnion and whatever that other one is. If I see one more thing from them, I’m turning it over to an attorney. I know it’s ridiculous to have to bring an attorney into something over $481, but after 8 months of having my credit dinged and the stress of dealing with it, I don’t know anything else to do.

So PLEASE, post this article on your Facebook wall, Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever. I want Best Buy, HSBC, and everyone else to know about it. The powers of social media may work better than hours on the phone!