Wonder if I can use this method on my relatives during the holiday season....

Poor girl.

Can you use this in reverse to charge the company when they call you asking where their money is?

Unless there are clear cases where they will refund the $15 "deposit," I am pretty sure this is illegal.

@sleze69: Don't a lot of places charge you a fee to pay by phone or in person? They usually call it a convenience fee.

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy->★: Yeah but that is a specific case. It would be similar to if they charged for technical support. If they indiscriminantly charge for everything, they are discouraging people from trying to follow-up on things to which they are entitled (return policy, etc.).

Quite a few companies let you RTFM for free, but charge a support fee to talk to someone or get any real answers.

If this was a fee to speak to anyone at the company, not just a fee to make a payment over the phone, her state AG might want to know this.

If you would like to read my comment please submit $15 to ................

I'd haggle... What can you get for $5.95?

So, they don't want the payment right?

Because it sounds like they don't want the payment. ;)

So you get a hold of a rep, and before you even start talking they have to process a $15 payment? If they are unhelpful, can you do a chargeback?

@sleze69: She was trying to make a payment over the phone though. I'm sure the return policy, if there is one(stores going out of business usually suspend Habeas Returnus), is listed on the receipts, the website, etc. The website doesn't seem too slow to me, and customer service was found right on the front page. [www.mervyns.com] I wonder if this fee is for making a payment over the phone.

I wonder what would happen if you gave them completely made up information? Would they just hang up on you after failing to process the payment?

The funny thing would be if they called you back and you requested $15 from them to speak to you.

@AlteredBeast: I'd do a chargeback anyway, regardless of if they're helpful or not.

You have to understand what has happened to Mervyn's. Private Equity folks bought the company and then split the retail side from their real estate holdings. Then they loaded up the retail side with hundreds of millions of dollars of debt in order to sell off the real estate holdings and pay off the debt they took to buy Mervyn's. So now the equity folks essentially owners Mervyn's for free and made a profit selling the real estate. And who was able to charge a huge fee for making this deal? The same company that bought it in the first place. So they've made money forward and backwards. Saddled with huge debt and no real estate equity, the Mervyn's retail side has been unable to get any normal retail credit financing. Which is why after so many years in business, they are now bankrupt. And why they are charging $15 to take a phone call. Because they do not want to take phone calls. If this was 1975, they'd just light a match to the place and walk away.

@AlteredBeast: And why do I picture the service reps asking "Will that be a five minute argument or the full half hour?" before they begin speaking to you?

I just spoke to a GE Money call quality specialist (the one who lives in my apartment, no less), who posited that what probably happened was that she had already told the phone tree she wanted to pay by phone.

It's free to pay through IVR (FD: I have no idea what that means), but it's $15 to talk to pay by phone. Once you've already stated your intention to pay by phone, the system assumes that's what you're going to do when you make a mistake.

The phone tree is byzantine, and impossible to navigate, and screw-ups are all but inevitable, but that's what the charge is. As long as no one is lying to me, it's not just a unilateral $15 leveled at all customers that talk to human beings.

Why not pay by snail mail or electronically through the bank and avoid the $15? Poor Mervyn's. They were the schnizzle in the late 80's through the 90's. Teaches you that all companies should be broken up from the get go so that when once sector needs to die the rest of the company won't go with it.

@thebeaver: Ooohh, ooh, ohh to where? WHERE??

I went to their in store liquidation on Black Friday and while they had some average deals most everything was the same old marked up and then discounted story we see at most liquidations.

I got some cheap slacks but honestly it was no where near the "everything must go and is drastically reduced" state they advertise.

We have a ''cheap'' cellphone company, that charges you 10$ for every call to customer service. However, customers know this, when they sign up, and there is always the potential to do everything online.

Unless it was disclosed in advance (when signing up), I don't see how it's could be justified...

@februarymakeup: IVR = Interactive Voice Response

i.e., stupid phone robot machine.

@februarymakeup: IVR: Interactive Voice Response. Like MRE, it can often be three lies in three words.

@HarleyBabb: And you would be breaking the law. You can not do chargebacks because you KNOWINGLY agreed to what you were going to pay. Claiming you didnt know would be fraud and criminal

@Hawkins: Most credit card companies charge $15 to pay via check via phone via phone robot. They get the cash because people are usually desparate by that time since they don't warranty that online payments get done the same day.

Funny thing about how that free online technology "doesn't" work for the customers benefit but a $15 phone call will...

Payment by phone? Well, then she was going to get charged anyway.

@Meltdown: It doesn't matter whether it's justified or ethical. What matters is whether it's legal or not. Welcome to the free market. Isn't unregulated capitalism wonderful?

I can tell you the real reason they are doing this. Just send me a $15 money order...

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy->★: Yeah, I know to pay the Best Buy card over the phone, there is a $15 fee. I sense some confusion here on the OP's part.

@thebeaver: Should I send it by Western Union to some PO Box in Russia??

All credit card providers charge through the nose ( $10 - $20 ) for pay by phone.

Pay by Phone is for desperate people who screwed up opportunities to pay on time earlier via snail mail or over the internet.

The op is complaining about SAP.

Is this why Consumerist tried to download a file to my computer? And am I going to have to fork over $15 to complain to the proper ad wizards (as I'm guessing it had something to do with one of the ads)?

Anyone else notice this? They are going out of business, but stil, online, they allow someone to buy gift cards... Nor do they make the information readily available on their website about going out of business...

@ALaterDayTD: She's trying to make a payment. This isn't a tech support call. Which M does she have to RTF in order to make a F'ing payment?

I walked by the local Comcast office recently and they had a note in the window advertising a $3 fee to pay your bill IN PERSON. Is that even legal??

@kbarrett: The op is complaining about SAP.

The German software company? I think we got off track somewhere.

The $15 fee is to make payment over the phone. Not to speak to someone. GE Capital manages and owns the credit card - not Mervyn's. GE went to court to stop all payments and transactions in stores during liquidation - fairly common practice apparently.

The fact that Mervyn's is in Chap 11 liquidation has nothing to do with this reader's unfortunate situation. Check out the private equity article that John in Brooklyn refers too - BusinessWeek.com

@ShadowFalls: when i looked at their website just now it had a big notice that says: "no returns will be accepted after november 14, 2008, regardless of date on receipt."
while that isn't explicitly saying they are going out of business, it IS a huge red flag.

and when you click on 'apply for a credit card' THIS also makes it abundantly evident that there is a closure going on:
"We are no longer opening new accounts for the Mervyns credit card program. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for understanding."

out of curiousity i clicked on the links to buy a gift card and both pages failed to open, in both firefox and IE - but that could be a connection error

I shopped at Mervyn's about two weeks ago, and the sales clerk told people that wanted to make their payment at the store that they could do it over the phone or online. He said that online would be better, because they would be charged a fee if they paid by phone.

@humphrmi: The internet for dummies, E-Bill chapter

Two stink-eyes on a puss-face, eh? ...I really don't have any sort of followup to that.

This is for Mervyns card payments, through GE moneybank. Not Mervyns itself. And it has always charged that. And this is not illegal. Many companies will charge to speak/pay with a representative. Dont bash me, its just the truth.

Mervyn's is dead in my are. Literally.

Just like the Great KMart Shutdown, you only see the once "busy" shells of their stores.

There are two lots where a Mervyn's used to sit, its been there for close to five years now.

Has it been sold? Nope. Both of them are still the buildings with the faded "Mervyn's" logo on it.

Please dont blame Mervyns....check out why it goes bankrupted at this week's businessweek. Hint! having to do with greedy private equity firms stripping every hard assets out of their target company and let died.