I closed my Target Visa account in July 2009, and paid it in full. I called Target to close my account and requested a final bill. I never received it, and thus, forgot all about it. That was my first mistake. It wasn't until I was looking up my credit score when moving that I noticed my Target account was over 120 days past due.

Immediately, I called Target and talked to someone on the phone for at least a half an hour. The reason why I never recieved a final statement, was because the balance was less than $10 so it was "not in the computer" to send me a statement. I asked, "How am I supposed to pay for something that I don't even know exists? I asked for a bill and never got one."

They supposedly removed all of the finance charges and were supposed to mail me a final bill, which was for $5.62. So, they didn't actually send me a final bill but just a copy of the August 2009 statement. At any rate, I paid the $5.62 by check, and thought I was finally done with this nonsense. They were also supposed to remove the negative statements on my credit report. Of course, I didn't have a lot of faith they would actually follow through on that so I also filed a dispute with Experian.

So, fast forward another couple months -- I check my credit report again and lo and behold, not only is the delinquency still there, but I'm also 30 days past due on the account. I tried to log into my Target Visa account online and it still worked (mind you, I don't want it to work, I just want to be done with Target Visa forever with no more charges! I thought that's what it meant when you closed an account). I had a $10 balance. I called them up immediately.

The first lady I talked to tried to remove my charges again. She said they wouldn't show up as $0 until after the next billing period is over (in about 2 weeks). She was trying to rush me off the phone, but I still had negative charges I wanted removed from my report, and didn't really want to answer of, "Call back after the next billing period to make sure I did my job right." So I said, "Who can I talk to that can remove the negative statements on my credit report?" and she said some snarky thing about how it was my fault I didn't pay the charges. I said, "Excuse me, I paid my account in full and requested a final bill that was never sent to me, so it that is TARGET's fault, and I will not stand for having these ridiculous delinquent statements on my credit report!" she she transferred me to an Account Services Manager or something like that.

Anyway, he told me that the account should show $0 within 24 hours, and that he removed all of the delinquent statements from the credit reporting and that I should receive a letter within 10 days. Why this couldn't have happened the LAST time I called, I don't know, but Target's inability to close my account and not charge me any more money is really frustrating. This has been going on for almost a year, and I don't really trust that they will actually be lifting the negative statements off my report. I guess we'll see what happens.

I can't say I will never be shopping at Target again, but I certainly will not be getting their credit card. The less credit cards I have the better, IMHO!