DentalFirst Financing

I thought Aspen Dental were crooks but now I know that this "bank" is just as shady and deceptive and work hand in hand with that company in trying to steal money. I entered into a contract with them for 0% for 18 months while at Aspen due to dental service costs.

First bill arrives, wife pays over the phone and receives a confirmation number but the day after the due date I get a call saying that I'm late and I need to pay as well as a late fee. Wife calls and I make my her an authorized person on account because she takes care of the bills. She provides confirmation number and they say "sorry, our bad we didn't process the payment. We'll waive the fee but we can't take payment from your HSA debit card".

Weird but whatever. Then 2 months later we never receive a bill because we do paper statements so my wife calls and is told that they can't talk to her because she's not authorized on the account. I then tell them again to put her on the account and she pays for that month's statement. A few months go by no issues but the day after my January statement due date I received a text that no payment has been received.

The check was mailed out on Jan.3 along with other checks. All those checks are received and posted by January 8 except for Dental First's. My wife calls again and just pays off the entire balance because this company is just a hassle to deal with. Days go by and no money is taken from my bank account so my wife calls to see what's happening.

She then is told that she's not an authorized person on the account again but I'm not there at the time to do the same authorization process that I've now done twice already. She says that she is authorized and that she has the name of employee and confirmation number from when she made a payment with a representative days earlier and he then tells her "you are authorized to make payments and use the account but not to talk to about payments and purchases on the account". How does that even make sense? She goes off on them.

The next afternoon, 1/16/24, I see on my bank account that they finally took the full balance amount that she did on 1/11/24 over the phone and that they cashed the check that they said wasn't received that morning. The automated phone message now says they owe us money. Now we'll need to chase down the money that is owed to us just like we did with Aspen Dental, which took a total of 9 months to get.

This place hopes to get late fees, surcharges and whatever other fees they can squeeze out of you through shady tactics because they are cheats, thieves, and liars. Avoid this place at all costs.

Terrible customer service. Ridiculous fees for paying over the phone, high interest on top of that.

I called to pay balance in full - got the automated line of course.

Paid the full balance i was given. Called the next day to verify payment and they added $13 saying that the amount the automated line gave me was not correct...like I came up with a random *** # to pay. Customer service rep was awful to deal with. Called back to make $13 payment and was unable, minimum amount that can be paid over the phone is $35...this company makes it extremely difficult to pay your f$#%ing bill.

They add random *** fees every chance they can. I will never ever do business with Aspen dental again based on this *** *** company they work with.

So started off strong with them. But over time, some less than great behavior cropped up.

You may end up with several "plans"(accounts) with each having its own interest rate, minimum payment, target date, and penalties for not paying off by said date. Your overall payment is split between these accounts to meet the minimum, and the remainder goes to the accounts they choose(already off to a messed up start). For a year or 2 I would occasionally I would call(since their website wouldn't allow) to pay on specific "plans" and this was fine when the plans were the low ARP promotional ones. But at some point i got slapped by my dentist with a deferred interest plan which needs to be paid off soon or ill owe An additional 50%/of the original amount(not the part I'm complaining about since I agreed to that bit).

Now all of a sudden the system was conveniently changed on their side and no longer allows the representatives to set a payment for a specific "plan". I have several plans that expire in 2024 that are low priority and only need their miniums at the moment and one in 2023 that id like to focus on and like pay off on time(a bit early even to avoid that 50% initial balance intrest) but since they decided the 2024 ones should get the extra in my payments and targeted payments are no longer allowed they are forcing either a full pay off of all " plans" or eat the interest situation.