Checksmart - Express PRA

Ok, I called Express PRA and spoke to the branch manager and told her I had $200 saved up and will be giving it to the 1 PDL that will accept it. I then buttered her up by saying that since she was soo nice to me previously, I decided to give her the first shot. Well, she said she needed to get on the phone to corporate to see if they will accept it and call me back. Well, I get a call back and she says that "corporate says they won'T accept anything less than $350 - but she cleared it by her regional manager (who just happened to be in the store) and she is willing to take the $200". So, I went to the store, paid the $200 and walked out with a receipt. In the store she tried to nail me down for a date for the next payment and amount. I simply told her that I am waiting on my 401k loan and my next payday but I will give her what I can, and she left it at that. A little jumping through hoops, but all in all, painless.

Good for you volley! It's just sad that you have to fight with these pdl's to take your money! I find it amazing. You would think they would rather have something other than nothing. Now, are you able to deal with the other pdl??

Hi everyone. I wanted to know if anyone had advice on a problem i did not create. I took out a loan at checksmart and owed them (this was on monday)$115.00. I made a deposit into my account but it didnt post before the 115.00 posted causing my account to go negative. i took care of that. paid my bank. and told the checksmart rep i would be in on my lunchbreak to take care of it on a friday. So friday i went in and paid the $115 and thought i was done. then on that next week tuesday, i found out they sent my check back thru in corporate (i dont know why i never asked for it back that friday...) and it ended up overdrawing my account by 50 dollars are so. i called checksmart, spoke to the manager, she said she would get taken care of. filled out some papers at my bank and the checksmart. it took them the whole week + 2 days and i accquired over draft fees. They told me dont worry, they would take care of it. i went on and called corporate and the lady in the refunds department was extremely nasty to me. she said she did not want to discuss my case because it was pointless and she wasnt going to do anything about it until the next day. She even hung up on me! She told me wrong info about when i paid the advance off as well. Needless to say, my account is STILL in the negative and the corporate lady NEVER even called me back. I called the bank manager and she said the lady was rude to her too and told her theyre not paying the fees now. WHAT CAN I DO?!?! I feel like this is totally unfair to me. And theyre basic response was they turned the check in on friday too so I dont understand why they would take my payment in the store. (The corporate lady was even trying to say i didnt pay it in the store!) HELP! PLEASE

Wow! I would involve your state's regulatory authority. File complaints against them. Since they are a licensed business, your state can possibly fine them or yank their license.

nia, this is insane! I know you're kicking yourself for not walking out the door with your check from the store front. OMG. I wish to God you had taken it. But you do have your receipt from when you paid it? And then the corporate office turned it in to your bank for payment AGAIN? File complaints. Let the storefront know you are filing complaints. And, actually, if you have a receipt showing that you made payment in full, with the date on it, then the check went through at a different date, why is your bank putting fees on your account? You obviously have documentation that it was paid and then the storefront turned it in for payment again. I'd go back to the bank and have a cow. And I'd also go to the storefront (or call the corp office) and have a cow. Let them know you will be filing complaints. This is just WRONG.

Hi Volley
I hope that you are not really taking a loan on your 401k to pay these people
Please say it aint true!!!!!!!!

So sorry it took so long to reply. Yes, they are storefronts. I'm still in this mess, trying to make it better. So I talked to a gentleman Sunday about the Express account. Made arrangements to pay $300/ paycheck for next 2 paychecks to Express and $300/ paycheck to Checksmart for next 3 checks after that one. I verified several times with him that this arrangement was okay and agreed to call him directly after each payment was made. I get a call tonight from Ms. Gold who says she doesn't care. It's her account, he had no authority to make arrangements on it and that she was sending it through. She then proceeded to hang up, so I tried getting ahold of this guy I spoke with Sunday night. I got transferred back to her again and real nasty she said pay it all before end of August. No options, no nothing. How can the same collections company for the same business do that? I talked to her for about 15 minutes trying to work something out and she will not budge. I called back, spoke to someone else who was very empathic and said she'd get ahold of someone to figure it out and then Ms. Gold got back on the line and told ME to quit calling. That she said what had to be done and that was it. Any more information available about this new law out... does it apply to existing loans or only new ones?

amwelch, I am so sorry about all this they are putting you through. I swear, this is why I refuse to do any kind of communicating over the telephone. I wish to goodness you had gotten it in writing from the gentleman you spoke with.

Take this for how you want with these two companies but here is another idea. I am with a debt consolation company and Checksmart and Express both said they would not work with my company. I told them take me to court and we will let a judge decide. I had the collectors telling me to take my TV to a pawn shop to pay them to a couple more things. I am in Franklin County and these companies used mediation. I was able to talk them into monthly payments and that may be an idea if they will not work with you. I'm not sure what county you are in but it????????s a thought. It took about two months for them to turn me into mediation and maybe you can have it all saved up and give them a money order when you attend that hearing. If you are not in Franklin County I can not say for sure if your county offers mediation. When the collection also talks to you inform them of the CFSA rules I also posted. They should allow you to set up payment according to rule #11 unless you have to take out the loan after 7/31.

Hi Ryan... If you read through that information, the repayment plan rule only applies if you contact them before the payment is due and let them know that you cannot pay it. It doesn't apply if you've already defaulted on the loan. The store manager at Checksmart gets in at 3, so I'm going to try to call him and work it out with him directly since it's his store that's owed the money. It just doesn't make sense to me that they can go back on a repayment plan that they set up. I don't care if it was her account or his, they are both representatives of each company. I work for a bank and they will let me go for something like this. I've been here for almost 9 years and definitely cannot afford to loose my job. I tried over and over to talk to this lady last night. Asked her if I should pay part of each one... she wouldn't answer. It's just so frustrating. She kept trying to throw in that I was writing bad checks. I said I didn't purposely write her bad checks and I wasn't attempting to do anything fraudulent. I defaulted on a loan, that's not criminal action. She then proceeded to tell me she was embarassed for me... I told her there's no reason to try to insult me and that constitutes verbal harassment. That's when she refused to say anything else but pay it all or nothing. UGH!!!! I just want out of these things for good and get my life back together. I had nightmares last night about this and was up half the night worrying. I just want it to be done with. I've turned off everything I can, cut all of my bills as much as possible. I even went in today and changed my IRS withholdings to try to get a little extra this month to go towards paying these people off. I don't know what else I can do and I'm loosing hope fast to be honest with you.