Roeland Park mayor finds it pays to Discover

Roeland Park Mayor Adrienne Foster is fighting with her bank over allegedly unpaid bills — and she’s fighting the political rumor mill.

After filing a lawsuit in January of this year claiming that Foster owed $7,802.31, Discover Bank won a judgment against her for the amount

plus interest and attorney’s fees. According to Johnson County court records, Foster failed to show up for a

November 3 hearing.

Then, on December 10, a garnishment was filed against Foster to recover the money.

Foster tells The Pitch that she’s disputing the charges and only found out about the garnishment from the city clerk an hour before a call from The Pitch. She says she hired an attorney to handle the case but hadn’t heard anything about it for a couple of months.

“They’re trying to charge me over $7,000 in interest and fees, which is not correct,” Foster says. “They upped the amount in the minimum payment, and then they started

charging me all kinds of fees. … They were definitely

taking advantage of me. It wasn’t right.”

Foster says she had set up a direct withdrawal with Discover,

which had been taking money out of her checking account for two years.

“The

minimum amount changed, and instead of them notifying me … they continued to take it out of my account

and then assessed fees,” Foster says.

Foster says she thought everything was fine until she received a letter from Discover about 15 months later.

Foster

says her original balance was only about $2,000.

“I will definitely get that

cleared up immediately,” Foster says. “Like I told the judge, I will

pay the exact amount that is due. I will pay it today.’ I told him

that in August.” But first, she says, she wants Discover to prove that it tried

to contact her about the new fees.