So, I worked out a deal with citifinancial to give them $200 (I did this on Thursday this week, with a money order), and a $300 post dated check for Feb 15th, of next month.
The bastards cashed it on Friday, overdrawing my account.
I’m going down to the local cifinancial office on friday to have a chat with the nice lady that I worked out this agreement with. Lord help me if I end up on the news for taking out a whole office with my screams (I’m just kidding of course, but I will give her a piece of my mind for sure)
Wellsfargo is gonna get a piece as well, for a cashing a check clearly dated for Feb 15th, 2007. Anyone know any rules on cashing post dated checks?
Frack this.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Once the check is written and signed it becomes legal tender regardless of the date. Never give a check to anyone unless/until you are ready to honor it. If you wanted them to have a check on February 15, then you should have written it on Febuary 13 and mailed it then.
Hate to break it to you, but post-dating checks is no longer allowed under banking regulations passed 3 or 4 years ago. It was big news in Boston, we all got pissed off–but less and less of us use checks now, so…
The regulation also says that banks don’t have to return canceled checks to you any more, as it is legally an electronic transaction. This introduces opportunities for fraud, of course, but it’s not like the banks give a s*** about their tiny retail banking customers.
I’m really sorry you had to learn about this the hard way… The only way to post-date a check is to deliver it when you want it cashed, and not before.
I’m not sure if you are male or female (not that it matters…it does in my case. I’m male and save money on haircare by shaving my head and keeping it short) but the main reason is you need to not get emotional about your debt. I just finished reading all your blog and comments and here are my thoughts.
1) Be careful about having CC pull from your bank accounts if they have access. Similiar to your experience with the “post dated” check some of them have clauses that will attempt to pull whatever they feel like when they feel you are not paying them.
2) Have you done the numbers to see if you are not spinning your wheels. By that I mean have you figured out best and worst case scenarios for payments (outflow) and commissions (inflow). I’d do that spreadsheet and see if you are not better off just going out and wiping the slate clean (bankruptcy). Either way your credit is going to get trashed because you are not paying the mins.
3) Worst case: What if you can’t pay your home? Any chance of going back with the parental units?
4) What can you sell that will help you raise money?
Now some personal history. Like Chris I’m older (42) but a difference is that at 23 I was just starting out and also in debt (10k). It took me a few years of saving (I started then and have never stopped) and paying but I clawed my way out of it and didn’t ruin my credit. Although I learned a valuable lesson that I continue today:
LIVING BELOW YOUR MEANS and only risking what you can afford to lose!
Over the years and via some smart investments I have moved my NetworthIQ to $750,000 (home is only 250k of it) and I owe ZERO. No mortgage (home was paid for in 1998), no credit card debt, no car loans. How?
Living below my means.
This year I will earn the most I have ever earned (80k) per year. Yet I still manage to save almost 30% of my pay per year. And I do have 2 vehicles 2002 Honda (bought used…with CASH) and a 1998 Acura (also bought with cash). I have 3 kids (17,14,10) and my wife has NEVER worked in 19 years of marriage.
So as a father figure feel free to ask me the hard questions. Maybe I can help you free yourself or tell you that it might be time to start over.
Good luck,
Rich
Rich,
Thanks for the nice and helpful comments. I do see bankruptcy as an option…just not yet. I’ll probably make that decision with my family sometime around the first of march.
I just feel stupid about the post-dated check thing now. I knew it sounded fishy. I’m going in tomorrow to talk to the lady that TOLD ME they would not cash it until the 15th. My personal account is negative now, and I know I’m going to have overdraft fees that are just going to make it worse come Monday morning.
I have a $2,000 motorcycle I am trying to sell the moment, just to raise some cash. I thought I was going to get it sold this weekend, but no luck yet.
On the income side of things, I’m 2 days through my “20 days of selling” campaign I’ve launched.
I’m basically selling our advertising packages 8 hours a day, with a goal of 10 per day. I told 9 the first day, and 7 on friday (with a few more verbal commitments on fri as well). If I can sell 8 to 10 a day for the next 18 days (possible), I will have the income to make it.
Packages sold (total): 45
Goal (March 1): 200
Thanks again for the help Rich. One thing I would like to say about living frugally…
I do. I always have. I don’t like fancy clothes, or cars. I do have a nice house, but it was not for show, but for investment. I don’t go out drinking every weekend and blow $200 on alchohol. My debts are a result of my trading (aka gambling) addiction.
Now that I have stopped that (and will be meeting with a counselor next wek), I should have stemmed the outflows. Unfortunetly, I know have my huge debt payment outflows… just wanted to let people know that. I don’t need fancy things…I have lots of wonderful friends and family that make me tens times happier than any material item(s) could.
Rich nailed it. Deep-sixing your debt, living on less than you make and saving dough is the way to make sure you never get in money trouble. If you pay off your plastic and cut up the cards, then you can tell the Citi-financial scum to take the train. Besides, you won’t be shelling out money at 18% when you use cash, so you won’t throw all your dough away in late fees and charges, and jerk collectors won’t hound you. You’re doing GREAT to live frugally like you do, so take it to the next level.
Create a budget, and save a baby emergency fund; about 1000 bucks. Then list your debts smallest to largest and go crazy on the smallest, paying it off until it’s gone. Then move to the next debt, and so on and so on. Each time you pay off a debt, you’ll get more steam to do it again. Before you know it, you’ll be debt-free.
It’ll be hard, but you can do it, baby. I’m proud of you, and good luck!
I can see you are frustrated. Best piece of advice is to find he root of your problem vs blaming and slandering companies. You should not go in to give a piece of your mind, but rather asking about other options that might be available to repay your debt during your difficult times. Keep in contact with all of your creditors and ask them for options and ideas to help you. I feel your pain and frustration, been there, done that, sometimes still living it……but the reality is we both have to look in the mirror and take responsibility for the situation and not bad mouth or blame others for our own mistakes. Good luck man….Credit counseling is helpful, Dave Ramsey book is good, possibly a BK attorney, but mainly beating your creditors to the punch with a plea for help!! Take Care…
FYI: They aren’t the one’s to blame.
You have overextended yourself (without a safety net).
Man, CitiFinancial is the like the mofioso. I tried to just pay off my balance today, and it was a MAJOR ordeal. Talk about avoidance, just getting through their stupid message tree is a major ordeal, getting to speak to a HUMAN is another challenge. Then they tired to charge me another $400 in interest and their intro offer does not expire for 5 more days!!! Unfreaking believeable. 20 minutes on the phone and I finally paid this off and got the account closed. The feds need to regulate the interest that can be charged by such companies and how they do business. This stuff should not be allowed to go on.
I really pissed at CitiFinancial. After all I signed the paper, I pay each month for $220, and I do not see the interest go down. I asked them transaction and I found out fock all of them off, they charged me 30.99% each month. They said, “oh this is good for you”. For example, I owed them $5000, I pay $130 interest each month there is no reduced down if you pay more. The more money you paid the more they took interest…for example, I paid $500 another month, they took interest $250 and put $250 your money return which means they took more than 30.99 each month. if you have all in one money pay all them off at one time. I wish I borrow them $100000 and run away and declare banrupcy better than return to them. This guy let you borrow money and you shouldn’t return to them I recommended. They said they help, their quote on the board is “get money today, tomorrow is dreams.” Yeah, my quote to them “get money today, tomorrow is night mare for years.” Fock you all CitiFinancial!
The question citifinancial needs to ask itself: is it ok for management to lie to employees and customers to make a buck? They have terrible ‘advice’ and will try to sink you with debt. They ’sell’ mortgages at double the prevailing rate to financially illiterate people by hyping what may be good and ommitting and lying about the bad. I’ve actually heard a mortgage pitched on ‘term savings’…ie after 20 years the customer would ’save’ $15,000 over 20 years by consolidating credit cards and almost paid off car loans into an overpriced mortgage. The amount of savings was calculated by comparing the new pmt vs the old pmt then multiplying by 12 monthly payments by 20 years. No admittance that the car loans would be done soon and that the customer was basically stretching out their financial problems for 20 more years. No talk that in present value terms, $15k over 20 years isn’t that much. Then I heard it: “state mandated points”…which was bs since I know for a fact my state does not mandate points to a lender.
citi financial in OTTAWA, ONtario are crooks….nobody borrow money from them!!!
Biggest mistake of the year….interest rates are killer
Greed- They are the only fuckers who will lend, you go to one of the chartered banks and they laugh at you, it's as if you need to have $20000 in your bank account to borrow. I borrowed 15K from the Kanata location 2 1/2 years ago. I make a payment of 460 a month. I checked out my balance last week $12,500, I called and asked to have my interest rate lowered and they just laughed at me. I hope citifinacial goes tits up and I get off the hook for this shit, i've already already paid 12,800 on this loan and it's come down by 2 grand. BS
Well I did the same thing I post dated and the bull shit artist cashed one week later they are a bunch of lying ( Oh I will have my manager call you yea right) jackassssss !!!!!!!!!!!
CITI are a bunch of crooks just wanting to get you in the door
to enslave you for ever!
my wife has an obsessive compulsive disorder, she has been in counseling for months now because she cant drive past some kind of pay-day loan office and walk out with 800.00 loans,she was late on every single payment for the duration of each loan,
yet with a negative credit report she was able to walk out of a citi financial office in Waco TX with $18,000 dollars! AND no legitimate way to pay it back! not only that
the collateral she put on the credit app was a figment of her imagination! YEAH you read that correctly, she completely made up what her assets were to get the loan
if they had bothered to check they would have laughed her out the office!
is there not a system of checks and balances in place to prevent this from happening?
anyone can walk in for unsecured loans with no viable means of repayment?
It is true that Citifanancial is an organization that pushes the envelope when it comes to business practices and the law. I have had on at least two occasions where I was told a pre-arranged payment was cancelled to be rescheduled, to find out that they took money from my account on both the cancelled date and the rescheduled date. They refused to give back the funds.
If your payment is more than a day late, they bombard your telephone with calls. Mind you, there is not a live person when you answer, it usually hangs up with no identification or there is a message saying that “Citi” has important information and could you call back. One of the numbers is 817-837-7838, when I get a call from this number they just hang up. When you call them back, it comes up with a bad extension and hangs up, no identification. This number calls a number of times a day. They will even call you when their own offices are closed.
Citifinancial is guilty of harassment and dishonestly conducting business. If you aren’t already a customer of this crime family, take heed and look elsewhere for financial help.