Complaint Review: KMART (Household Retail Services Inc)

My wife and I opened a Kmart charge account to purchase Christmas presents this past December. We accrued a balance of $650.06 as a result of our purchases. In March, when my federal income tax return came, I wanted to pay off the account in full and close it in order to consolidate some payments. I called Kmart, gave them my account number and told them what I wanted to do.

The customer service representative asked what check number I was going to use, which puzzled me, but I gave it to him anyway since they would have the check itself in a week or so. My last words to the customer service representative were that I would put a check into the mail immediately.

On March 10th, my written check cleared my account. Five days later, Kmart electronically withdrew another $650.03 from my checking account! I am a high school teacher. When someone withdrawls an extra $650.03 from my account without authorization, bad things start to happen.

Luckily I only had three checks that bounced. At first Kmart refused to even refund my money and wanted to give me a $650.06 credit on my Kmart card that didn't exist anymore.

I finally got them to agree to refund my money in a check after more than two hours of phone conversation, but they steadfastly refused to refund any overdraft charges that resulted from the unauthorized withdrawl of money from my checking account. The overdraft charges currently total about $90.00 so far.

I will never spend another dime in Kmart as long as I live. NEVER!