GE Money Bank review: Cheating customers! 571

Each month I paid anywhere from 2 to 10 times the "minimum" payment due. At the end I owed $800 and had paid over $3000. They sent me a bill for interest on the entire amount. I paid them the $800 plus interest at 23% but refuse to pay interest on money they already received and had the use of. Aren't there usury laws in this country?

Oh No!

I thought the "Care Credit" was going to be great. Get all the dental work you want done, make monthly payments.

Well, the due date was always the 15th and I've been making payments on time.

Suddently, they decided to switch it to the first of the month, causing me to be "delinquent" by $40 or something ridiculous. They charged over $100 in late fees and finance charges, and an irate, demanding Indian called my office phone to bark at me today.

I immediately made an online payment, which they won't process for 24-48 hours. Today's the 9th of the month - why couldn't they have just left my due date the 15th and everything would be OK?

Now I have to call them back and ask them to change my due date back, but from what I've read above, I bet they'll keep scamming me and my life will be screwed.

From what I've read here, I could pay the whole thing (it's only $1,000 total) today and they'd still bill me and charge me late fees, and take me to court, and who knows what else!

I'm so royally screwed. What a MISTAKE!

GE Money Bank has utmost unheard of customer care I ever seen!

I had financed my carpet from Empire through GE Money Bank. It had promotional no payment until year 2007. So I made my payment at the end of my promotional period. The payment went through well. Only problem was that I made $5000 extra payment to GE MONEY. (I made payment and my mom did not knew about it so she mailed in payment at same time)

I asked the GE money to refund the credit amount when I closed account on beginning of Jan, 2007. They said they will gladly refund the extra payment, however, since it was large amount the request had to reviewed by their accounting department.

This process would take about a month they told me. I did not complain since it was my fault that I made extra payment. So it was ok I waited a month.

A month and 2 weeks passed, I did not see my refund check... I called in Feb 9th concerning the status of the refund... Rep. told me the request had been sent to accounting department on Jan 25th... and is under the review! At this point, I jumped and complained the request had been made on 1st week of Jan and why the request had waited more than 3 wks to be process. Then... she corrected herself that it was mailed on 25th. It was mailed on 25th then where is my check? unless it is international mail... At this point I lost my trust over this lady I spoke to... so I asked for the supervisor... (This point she was at the point of yelling at me for asking my money back..)

At first she refused to transfer and kept repeating that I should wait for the check and there is nothing she could do since the check is mailed out... and be patient about it. I insisted that I don't want to speak to her but her manager. So I spoke to the manager and explained the situation and the frustration. He was very calm about it and advised me that the check might been lost in the mail so only option was to stop payment on the check and reissue one. So it was done... I had to wait another 10 days for the check.

Feb. 26th... I still have not seen the check.
I called in and the customer service response was rudest and not caring. The first lady transferred me to person who will help me see where the payment was... second lady repeated same thing to me and more pissed at me than I was pissed at GE Money itself for being NOT patient for the refund.

Finally, after repeating same thing, she hung up on me!
Talk about rudeness!

According to last person I spoke to, if the check gets lost in the mail AGAIN, they will have to repeat the process... (it is 3 week process... check if check is not cashed... re-issue and 5-10 biz day mail) SOOO FRUSTRATED at THEIR ATTITUDE to THE CUSTOMER!

I wish best of luck to everyone mistreated by GE MONEY.

I had a Care Credit account. Now please know that I am very consistent in my bill paying and working in a service industry I understand the importance of service and courtesy on both sides of the phone. I will admit that I had missed one payment, which is not my norm. I accepted the late fee and the change in interest under the terms for my error.

I ended up making a balance transfer to avoid the high interest charges. My effort was mysteriously thwarted somewhere which resulted in a second late payment - which apparently canceled the promotional terms and set the interest rate to an unbelievable 40%.

When I called back in to arrange the transfer for the second time, everything appeared to be in order and was processed. I received my letter confirming the account was closed and the balance zero. I was actually refunded the $45 overpayment I made due to the CSR's error on the payoff amount when I called.

So today I receive a new statement showing $83 and change due as an interest payment assesed 2 weeks after I closed the account and final payment was posted. The arguement was that the computer assessed the charges for the next billing cycle because of my "default" of the promotional terms and that there was "no way the CSR could have known that the additional charges would be incurred".

So after sitting on hold for half an hour, the first CSR hung up on me after I asked her to repeat something I couldn't understand. When I say hung I mean slammed down the phone. The second was unexusabley rude - interrupting, talking over me, etc. - and told me there was no way the charges would ever be reversed.

Now my husband worked in the particular call center I had called for several years (he left due to poor working conditions and extreme mistreatment by management) and I know a little more than the average caller about getting results in a call center situation. Because of this I continued to insist on being transferred to a shift supervisor. I was eventually transferred to someone else and I knew to ask very direct questions about who I was speaking with, the authority level, etc.

When I was finally connected to someone who would talk to me I continued to insist until finally the rep on the phone caved and said they would remove the charge, but only because I was so insistent, not becuase it was the right thing to do. I was more fortunate than many because I knew that to call late in the evening meant the same people would be answering the phone - no matter how many times I called and eventually I would wear someone done.

I took a deep breath and did my very best to speak in a clear calm manner and explained my frustration with rude behavior, and unwarranted charges. I told him I wanted to file a formal complaint and I too, was given the "address" to send a letter. It was at that moment I knew that it would take bringing my complaint to the world via forums such as this, rather than writing a letter addressed to "Correspondence" in El Paso.

The fact is these CSR's are instructed to not allow you to talk to a supervisor - they will go so far as to flat out lie to you on the phone, to pass you over the cubical wall to the CSR sitting next to them or to "accidentally" drop your call. They are told to refuse your requests regardless of how grounded in truth they are - and the majority of the time when you do actually get someone in management they will be verbally abusive - extremely so - swearing, yelling, badgering, belittling... it's pretty sick.

The same thing has happened to us on 2 motorcycle's and a trailer. Saying payments weren't made. I even sent them the confirmation numbers, bank statement and their statements showing they had been made. We were lied to, threatened and phone call harassed continuously and now they have an attorney (who's rude as hell) contacting and threatening us. I say get a class action lawsuit against them and don't let them get away with unfair charges. I have turned mine over to the Michigan State Attorney Generals Office.

I also had one payment left on my $3000.00 loan for an elliptical Runner. My promotional period was set to expire on 2/15/07. Today in the mail I received a new bill with the full interest over the life of the loan now due in Full. A full month ahead of the specified period. I just got off the phone having spoken to 3 different outsourced call centers and various levels of "management" who all said that even though I'm trying to pay my Balance (minus the suddenly due interest) that they can't ..and won't waive the charges. I work at a bank and we have the ability to waive ANY fee's we charge as a financial institution. I know GE Money has the same capabilities.

Let me paint a picture for you. I purchased an $18,000 camper through a local camper dealer. The dealer financed it through GEMB. It was great for about 8 months, then they began to loose my checks. I sent it to the same address I always did. After the first lost check I verified the address. It was correct. I verified it after the 2nd lost check. It was still the correct address. When asked why they lost my check, they blamed the USPS. So I started making phone payments, it's $10 more to make a payment by phone, but I was spending way more than that canceling my checks. Everything was fine making phone payments, then after 2 phone payments, they applied my payment to my GEMB credit card I had. Everyone at the company said that could happen if I keyed the numbers in wrong. I talked to a customer service rep. when I made that payment though, not the automated system. They also stated that could never happen because the two were on separate systems, one could not accross the other. Once again they're mistake. It took me a month and a half to get my credit card company(GEMB)to refund the payment. It was difficult because no one there could speak good enough English to help me. In the meantime my camper payment went unpaid. Did they offer to help me out, no, I had already made they payment to them, they made a mistake not me. I would love to make my payments online, but they don't offer that service. Then I started sending checks again. They lost another and cashed one 35 days late, effecting my credit report for the 2nd time and having they're collections dept. call me 10 times a day to ask where they're payment was. Then this last week I made a phone payment again using the automated system. Made the payment, right? Checked a couple days later, no! I have my bank track the direct withdrawal from my account. It went to someone else's account. When I asked them why, they said I keyed the acct. # wrong. I can myself missing a number, maybe 2. But the account was 9 digits off from mine. No way I miss keyed that many numbers. They wanted me to make a second payment to catch up my account, I don't have that kind of money. They also stated that I could have them take the payment out of my checking account if I filled out some paperwork that they could send to me. Where was that idea 6 months ago when they lost my first check? Thanks, too little, too late! So now I have my bank working with their accounting dept. to track done the miss applied funds and get them into my account. In the meantime my account is 20 days late and counting. I hope they work this out soon, because my credit report is really suffering. Thanks, Nick Jensen Bettendorf, Iowa [protected])

I had finance from ge money...they present cheque on wrong date and asking for unwanted panalty.

GE Money Bank cheats your average Joe.

My story is very much the same. With only $1,300 remaining on a $12,500 flat screen TV-stereo system 16 month 0% pay back purchase, and 3 weeks and one last payment shy of the promotional due date, GE Money Bank cancels the promotion purchase date and assesses my account with a $3,500 finance charge! Three to four phone calls to India, then 4-5 calls to their office in Kettering Ohio was the most futile of experiences. No one individual, save one woman who was willing to half the charges, demonstrated any concern for a customer, with excellent credit, who grossly overpaid many monthly minimums, and who was to pay off the balance 2 weeks before the promotional due date. According to them I was 61 days delinquent on my 15th payment to them. Mind you, the 16th payment statement said nothing of the sort, and again as I have done many times before, I overpaid the minimum payment (of $159) with an online transfer of $1,363.45. Then the final statement arrives 3 weeks prior to the promotional due date announcing the cancellation and the assessment of the $3,500 finance charges. Unbelievable.

Ultimately I sent a letter to their El Paso, Texas office explaining the situation, disputing the finance charges, and hoping that, unlike the 9 to 10 very uncaring brick wall telephone conversations I have had with GE Customer Service, I would get some where, anywhere. The reply was rote, it reiterated the 61 day delinquency, and said if I have further questions to call Customer Service. Again, unbelievable.

What is very interesting is that 61 day delinquency did occur, but without me ever receiving a 15th monthly statement in the mail ( I am to visit my local post office to see if any delivery failures occurred.) I assumed that no bill was sent because of nearing the end of the promotional due date, that because I overpaid on the account on many occasions, and the fact that I made 2 separate payments on the 14th statement ($567 in excess of the minimum) that GE purposely delayed the final billing. Boy was I wrong! Now, I think it was a conniving maneuver on their part to penalize me for skipping a monthly minimum payment, just before I could payoff the 0% debt. I keep meticulous records and file all my statements. I never received a statement during the 61 day delinquency, and according to my last phone conversation with Customer Service they made 29 phone call attempts to reach me at home and work to notify me of the lapse in payment, none of which I ever received.

Where does an average Joe like me go from here? I am so bewildered and frustrated by GE Money Bank's disregard for any negotiation or leniency, not to mention the impending $3,5oo finance charge that I have to pay on a successful paid in full promotional purchase. I plan to submit my complaint to the Maryland State's Attorney office. But, for me and all the other average hard working people out there getting screwed by GE Money Bank, I wish there was an attorney willing to take on the surreptitious and unscrupulous dealings of such a rotten and unjust corporation.

We had the same thing happen but our statement was always in Spanish, i couldn't make heads or tails out of it. Where do you get help?

I sympathize with your ordeal, but there is an easy fix. You should contact your dentist who will call GE Money to set up the promotion that was promised to you.