Jason H

Do not put your finger into the wrong pie!

Fingerhut credit is a direct retail company on the World Wide Web. To make shopping affordable, this company offers credit facilities to its customers. Nevertheless, they could not live up to the expectations of the customers. A series of set backs may have been responsible for the deterioration.  

About the company:

Fingerhut credit was set up in the year 1948. Since then it has transformed from a small entrepreneurial business house in to a direct retailer with network spreading across the nation. Fingerhut credit has a wide range of products to offer and company offers credit for buying these products. The product range includes toys, house wares, beauty products, jewelry and various other items. Credit is usually extended in different forms. It may be in form of easily spaced monthly payments or with the help of a credit card. These monthly payments are made possible with Fingerhut Credit Account, which is issued by CIT Bank.

Benefits of using a Fingerhut Credit Account:

In a nut shell Fingerhut Credit claims to provide the following benefits to its customers:

• Delivery at doorstep
• Convenient Credit
• Trial for 30 days
• Low Monthly payments with the help of Fingerhut Credit Account.

Features of Fingerhut Credit Account:

Fingerhut Credit offers the following to a shopper who wishes to avail of Fingerhut Credit Account; the account has the following features-

• Credit limit of the account grows when the payment capacity of the customer grows.
• The company allows on line shopping and payment
• One is not required to make any down payments.
• The monthly payment is decided on the basis of the payment capacity of the customer.

All is not well though:

Despite the fact that the company offers so many facilities, all customers are not satisfied with their services. Some of the customers are of the opinion that the credit statements are misrepresented. Yet others say that the company asks for more money than the customer is actually required to pay. The customer service is also not up to the mark people say. It is also said that in most of the cases, the payment/credit record of the customers differs from that of the records maintained by the company. Due to such disputes people have moved on to other companies.

Fingerhut had to wade across troubled times:

The worst may have been over but the consequences still haunt the company. Given below are certain facts about the company.

• Fingerhut was acquired by Federated Department Stores Inc in February 1999. The deal was settled at USD$1.7 billion.
• The company’s fulfillment contracts nosedived from 22 to 8.
• Fingerhut slashed its labor force by 24% (as of 2000).
• The parent company (Federated Department Stores Inc) shut down 5 e-commerce sites.
• After the acquisition, it was expected that Internet sale would reach a whopping USD$3 billion (2004) but the results were just the reverse. In the 2000, Internet sale was projected at USD$180 million only.
• During the period 1998-1999, Fingerhut Credit gave out credit cards to as many as 4 million customers. They charged a high rate of interest on the credit cards. Credit was also given to customers whose credit history was not good.

A downward journey:

The company was ambitious and it reached a level but it did not have the infrastructure required to maintain the consistency. Due to the irregularities in its management, they failed in delivering orders and consequently, the quality of their services dropped drastically.

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