There can be fraud on the part of the companies. Years ago, my husband opened a store credit card at a chain jewelers. He bought my engagement ring with that financing. The terms were no interest for one year; 3 months before we were to have paid it off, the company suddenly stopped sending us statements.
Fortunately, we were keeping track and made the final three payments (the company claimed they didn’t have an apartment number for us, but we’d received 9 other statements with the address correct.)
Another couple of months went by, and suddenly they dinged his credit report for the “unpaid” interest charges. But we’d paid this on time, no late payments, and I’d made the final one over the phone to insure that it wasn’t late. We didn’t owe any interest charges; we’d stuck to the terms of the agreement. It still took us a year to get it off his credit report. I am quite certain that the company had a plan here: to stop sending statements in the hopes that we’d make late payments, thus leaving us on the hook for the interest. When we paid anyway, they still tried it.
