I use my Sears Master Card for all small purchases (under $500.00). I am in Leesburg, FL visiting family and am scheduled to fly back to New York tomorrow at 11:40 am from Orlando. I have reserved a car at Budget in Leesburg and arrived to pick it up at 12:00 noon.

My Master Card was rejected because I did not have at least $200.00 credit available (my fault for not check the available credit earlier. I assumed I had at least that much.) I did have $184.00 avaiable credit.

I called the 800 number on the back of the Sears Master Card and made a payment from my checking account for $200.00. I asked the gentleman on the other end of the line if he could expedite the payment so that it would post immediately. I explained the situation to him. He said that the $200.00 payment would post right away and that I should have no problem renting the car.

That did not happen. The computer at Budget again rejected my card. I left to have lunch. I then went back to my father's home and called the number on the back of the Sears credit card. This time I was told it would take 24-48 hours for my payment to be posted to the account.

I told this person what the first person had said to me about the payment being expedited and posting "right away." This second person informed me that Person #1 should never have said that to me. I asked if anything could be done to post this payment now. She said nothing could be done. I then asked to speak to a supervisor.

The supervisor reiterated that nothing could be done to expedite the posting of the payment. I asked that if I went into the local Sears store and paid $100.00 cash on the account - would that cash payment post immediately? He responded in the negative. He stated that only debits to the account (purchases) are posted immediately.

I asked if there was anything that could be done to credit the account with only $16.00 to bring the credit available up to $200.00. He said he would ask the computer for a credit increase. The computer rejected the request. I ONLY NEED $16.00 CREDIT. I have paid my bills on time. I cannot believe that there is nothing that Sears could do to help me out of this $16.00 bind, given my payment history.

Why is this so difficult?

Robert Memmoli
Account: 5121-0797-5373-8548