Don't Trust the Sears Salesman

I’m pissed off at Sears right now. Last April, Mel and I bought a new washer and a new dryer there four our new house. We financed the purchase using their credit card and got one year interest free. That promotional offer is going to expire on April 1. If we do not have the balance paid in full by then, we will be charged interest back to the date of purchase. We’ve been making monthly payments and have been on track to get the balance paid off before that date. In January, we bought an elliptical exerciser also at Sears and put the purchase on our Sears card. This time, we got six months to pay without interest. Now before we made the purchase, I asked the salesman if payments to our Sears card would be applied first to the promotional balance that expires first. He said they would. I realize that not all credit cards do this, but I do have some, such as my Best Buy card, that do. With this information from the salesman, I felt comfortable in adding this new purchase to the same card.

Well, when my bill came a few weeks ago, I realized that part of my previous payment had been applied to the new balance. I called customer service but the person on the phone did not know how the distribution of payments was determined. So, I made an additional payment to see what would happen. I just got off the phone with the customer service people again and I learned that payments are first applied to balances with the latest expiration. This means that if I want to avoid finance charges on my washer and dryer, I need to pay off the entire balance by the end of the month. I can do this without much problem, but I am upset. I was planning on being able to defer paying for the elliptical in full until the beginning of July. I guess I better read my card member agreements a little more closely in the future.