Enough Comenity with the BS - Might be bye-bye VX
 

Okay, I wasn't going to post my woes with the "pre-approved" drama I'm dealing with (still) from Comenity Bank, but enough is enough with the BS of me proving who I am to them.

Summary of drama:

January 20th: letter from Comenity informing me there's a problem with my application I completed online. My address, SSN, or or name doesn't match the info they received in the pre-approved offer they got from VX (whatever...)

Sure, I moved, updated my address profile with VX, sent the info to Comenity. " Hey, I moved almost a year ago.. this is where I live now... Please update your records...

February 11th: Letter from Comenity, they can't accept my handwritten info and need proof... Send in photo ID and copy of SSN on card. I send in Passport and SSN card... DL has old adddress, figured that would be an issue... Confirmed with DMV they have current address on file. Set to go if I need new ID with current address, not required until DL expires 2017.

February 28th: Letter rec'd today... They need proof of my address, have to send in Bills from Telephone, Water and Gas/Electric before they can accept my request to change my address... Enough is enough.... I give the %^%# up....

But get this... with each letter that I've received, thus far, has been sent to my old address and the forwarding kicks in... And, even better, I've gotten an offer letter/application from Comenity to apply for their CC and even "Bill Me Later" offers at my current address and that offer is valid for United Airlines flights... ... What is THAT all about...????

Think I will comply with this last final letter and send them my details for the VX CC... If they need more, I'm done... So over this BS with Comenity... Guess they don't want me to have a VX CC... I think I will comply and send them the requested info. And as an added caveat, I will send them a copy of one of the offer letters they've sent me as proof of my address. What's up with the possible bait and switch Comenity... Will be alerting VX about this as I did about the BS I get from Barclay... Not VX's fault... But they need to be aware of the antics/dealings their partners are doing with their customers...

Yikes... glad I didn't apply. Seems like they still have a lot of issues to iron out. I disagree with you on one thing... VX does have responsibility on this. They choose Comenity, when they could have went with another financial institution. So if they decide to go with Comenity, they should know that their customers are not happy with their decision. So VX needs to know.

Update: The day after posting my message I decided to notify VX about my whoos. Within 48 hours I received a message from VX alerting me that they will investigate my report and get back with me.

On Friday of last week, I receive an email from VX alerting me that I should expect a call from Comenity that day, which to my surprise did occur!!!

I was FINALLY approved for the VX credit card. And it is to be the sleek upgraded one the agent told me. Guess that's the least they could do after all this drama... 2 months of back and forth with Comenity... Ready to move on... Grrrrr!!!

Just wanted to close the loop on this post....

Cheers!!

Sounds like pretty standard industry anti-fraud measures. Keeping the mailings at the old address until the new address has been fully verified protects against many of the CC scams out there in which the "bad guys" use your credit to establish a card at their "new address".

the "sleek upgraded one." Do you mean card? Looking forward to hearing what you think about it. I am wondering if they are even going to send a new card to the people who already have it.

Anyway, glad the issue was resolved. Win for VX.

Well, it's just the beginning for you. I'm sure you've read the all the issues with this card (Limited customer service hours, flimsy card, purchase amount limit, etc) in the other thread but I just found another issue with this train wreck.
Authorized users for this card, or "Authorized Buyers," as the Express Card, I mean, Comenity VX card calls them have the same account number and cvv. I presume this means that when one user has a fraud activity everyone's card is stopped and must wait a while for the replacements to arrive.
Also, all the purchases made each month are listed together on the statement and not split by users like how Barclay and every other real bank produces your statement.

I can confirm that Chase & Citi Bank does this too. The only institution that issues a different number/cvv is American Express.

This is the same for Chase as well, not just an issue with Comenity.

Not true. I know that Household Bank/Capital One, Barclay, and another that I cannot recall at the moment issue different numbers.

I stand corrected. AX is the only financial institution that I know that issues different numbers. I am sure that there are others. But Chase & CitiBank, (two major banks in the U.S.) does not issue different numbers (that I know). So I'd rather not thrown Comenity in the hole for this one.

+1

I'm surprised you thought that your passport would be useful to provide proof of address when it was requested. You definitely contributed to that extra exchange in the process.

No, they asked for me to send in a photo ID and A copy of my SSN card. Not my fault that they were not direct in their letter indicating that my address needed to be on the photo ID.

The "sleek new card" I received in the mail today is the premium card. However, it wasn't the new version of card. There was a flyer in the the card indicating that I should expect to revive a replacement card that made of the more durable material they are beginning to upgrades card to be made of.

Oh well! Will cross that bridge when it comes.

I dont get why its so hard to make the quality of the card up to the standards of other credit cards. Is the plastic for credit cards some big secret that they need to figure out or something?