We&39;ve received some great emails in response to our post about the Macy&39;s/Citibank credit card debacle.  Marcia&39;s first person account was a favorite:

I just thought I&39;d surf the Internet to see if this happened to others.  What a scam!  My poor 27-year-old son was a victim of this.  He claims he never go a letter from Macy&39;s and if he had, probably threw it away as junk mail.  As for getting an opt-out letter from Citi, again, he assumed it was junk mail as we all get far too many offers for credit cards in the mail. 

Well, thank goodness he&39;s living at home for a few months because when I saw the Citi credit card laying on the table, I asked him what it was.  Well, again, he figured it was junk and was getting ready to shred it.  Thank GOD I looked at the letter and told him it was an active account they&39; opened.

Well, he gets on the phone last night with Citi and tells them to close it immediately!  He connected the dots as well and told them that now it&39;s going to hurt his credit score because it shows an account opened and closed within a short time frame.  He has excellent credit, the high 700s-low 800s, and takes his credit score very seriously.  Citi tells him it will take seven to ten business days to close an account he never opened.  When questioned, they tell him they got his info from Macy&39;s, including his full Social Security number!!!  Pretty interesting since he&39;s had three different address in the past ten months, and they found him at our house.

Well, a call into Macy&39;s was next.  First, he told them to close his account, which they tell him was already closed when they transferred his account to Citi.  Plus, they repeatedly told him, when questioned, that they had received NO CONSIDERATION from Citi to, in essence, sell his personal information.  Now, if that doesn&39;t smell rotten, nothing does.

My son probably spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to straighten this out and is absolutely beside himself, ready to go to the attorney general.  Unfortunately, I love Macy&39;s and have been a dedicated shopper for over 30 years. After being a faithful Macy&39;s customer, I have closed my account with them. Perhaps if everyone sent Macy&39;s a clear message, this type of nonsense will cease!

Do you have a story of creditor incompetence, Macy&39;s or otherwise? Please share it with us at tidbits@credit.com.

Emily Davidson – Credit.com&39;s Communication Director and former TransUnion credit expert. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com moderator.