Q: Is it worth hiring an attorney to deal with the credit card company? They denied my fraud claim, and the dispute.
I'm a resident of DE.
Dec-Feb we had a contractor doing work on the house. He used my home depot credit card use for supplies. I rcvd the card back with the receipt each time. So he may or may not be connected with the fraud.
In March we had $640 worth of fraud charges on the credit card. In April, we had another $25 before I caught on and shut the card down. The Home Depot credit card has denied my fraud claims. The orders were picked up in store and they won't even try to pull security camera footage to see who made these purchases.
I've filed a police report, but am not hopeful much will come of that.
I filed a complaint with the Attorney General and the CFPB. Citibank (servicer of the home depot credit card) only reiterated their denial of the fraud claim.
Logically is this worth pursuing further? If so, what's my next step? I'm mad enough that I am not paying. So there is going to now be a charge off on my credit report, which just makes me even madder
A:
I am sure that Delaware has a small claims court system. Your claim, being under $1000.00 will most likely fall in the jurisdiction. You need to sue the contractor for use of the CC beyond the permissive use you gave him. Pay the CC to preserve your credit. HD really did not do anything wrong, IMO, because you gave the contractor permission to use the card and it was then your responsibility to monitor all charges to be sure they were for your job. Prepare your presentation for the small claims judge with copies of the charges that were not authorized and a summary sheet on top showing the total. An adding machine tape would be great.
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