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Creditors feed on
illness
By Bankrate.com
 Rather
than working out payment schedules for families hit with serious
illness, many lenders see the families' instability as feeding time.
Payment delay approved -- but bank raises interest
My wife was diagnosed with cancer. The illness, plus the loss of
her job, hit us hard financially.
I called our mortgage company to let them know our
situation and asked them to let us hold back our mortgage payment
for two months and promised I would catch back up after selling
some stock.
Everything was fine until a few months later when
our bank stopped our credit line of $20,000 and raised the interest
rate to from 15 percent to 22.99 percent.
Why? Because after looking at our credit report they
saw we had been late on our mortgage payment by two months.
Explaining and pleading my circumstances did no good.
Now, not only has my wife passed away, but I also have a bank note
of $17,800 at 22.99 percent.
Disability insurance denied to cancer patient
I opened a credit card account with a bank and agreed to pay
$30 a month for disability coverage. In August, I was diagnosed
with cancer. I immediately notified the bank that I needed to activate
the insurance coverage because I was unable to work. It is now nearly
two months later and the coverage has not been activated.
Meanwhile the bank is charging me 25 percent interest
rate and I am off work trying to battle this cancer.
I have called numerous times trying to get this resolved.
The first three times I was told that the account was not current,
so I made the payments via the phone each time (at $12 a clip) and
was told that things would be fine. After a few days I received
a letter stating that the disability insurance could not be activated
due to "the status of the account." I have placed more
telephone calls to supervisors but this has produced no action.
I am so frustrated! I have mounting medical
bills and the bank is adding interest expense by the day! Some disability
coverage.
-- Posted: Oct. 25, 2002
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