Complaint Review: GE Money Bank - hhgregg - Charlotte North Carolina

You still don't get it.  You admit to hearing complaints like mine every day and you chalk it up to the ignorance of consumers. It's not our ignorance but our being fed up with the greed of credit companies like yours that as you admit are working to build a monopoly over all consumer credit.  The current administration understands your growing greed and insidious hidden charges and penalties. 

Your agent in India was very arrogant and unprofessional.  YOU continue to argue without considering my point.  I was making payments every thirty days and paying much more than the minimum.  Your agent in India insisted that my payments were late and I owed the late fee.  Having looked at my account he could see that my account was ahead of schedule and being paid regularly.  The $39 late fee was not warranted in either case.  He insisted that I owed it.  I am not ignorant of the greed your company has with computer programs so trigger happy to grab unwarranted late fees.

I have done business with many of the stores you mention.  I have credit cards that I have used for many years, making payments early and on my payday without ever having late fees like your attached.  I can easily do without GE Money Bank at these stores by not getting store credit cards.  They work with me honestly and fairly without the arrogant greed your company programs into it's processes. 

I understand your threat that GE Money Bank is taking over the world and I can't stop it.

Let's take this to television and see.  Let's take it to Clark Howard on CNN.

Sorry to hear you're still stewing about this experience. The only reason I posted to you is because I see and hear complaints like yours everyday. I try to help my customers and educate them. Once they realize the simplicity of the 30 day cycle they're fine. I do so wih professionalism and not arrogance. You have an unfortunate ignorance about how the credit card system works. Instead of trying to understand, you want to blame everyone else. Trust me sir, EVERY credit card on the planet operates on the 30 day cycle. If you make a payment within that 30 day cycle (which is spelled out clearly in your terms of agreement) then it's posted in that timeframe. Not carried over as you wish. It's not just GEMB. Call Visa, Mastercard, Dicsover, Capitol One...call them all. They will tell you that the banking system is exactly as I described. As for staying away from GE Money Bank? Good luck with that. They handle the finances for just about every retail outlet left standing. HH Gregg, Lowe's, JC Penney, Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, Dillard's, Gap, Belk, Amazon.Com, American Eagle, Banana Republic, Brooks Brothers, eBay's Paypal, Home Shopping Network, Lord & Taylor, Mervyns, Old Navy, Men's Wearhouse, QVC, Sotheby's and a few others I cannot remember at the time of this posting. General Electric is one of the largest corporations in the world, and still growing. From time to time I see customers saying "I'll just go to K-Mart or CostCo". You're free to do what you wish, however, K-Mart and CostCo probably won't be around in the next few years. My advice? Either make good with GE Money Bank and the clients it represents or spend your money elsewhere. I'm afraid in the end, as far as retail outlets are concerned, you won't have much of a choice in the coming years. You may think I'm being harsh or arrogant. I'm not. I haven't resorted to calling you names or even stating the obvious that other readers like myself know.

Sorry to hear you're still stewing about this experience.  The only reason I posted to you is because I see and hear complaints like yours everyday.  I try to help my customers and educate them.  Once they realize the simplicity of the 30 day cycle they're fine.  I do so wih professionalism and not arrogance. 

You have an unfortunate ignorance about how the credit card system works. Instead of trying to understand, you want to blame everyone else.  Trust me sir, EVERY credit card on the planet operates on the 30 day cycle.  If you make a payment within that 30 day cycle (which is spelled out clearly in your terms of agreement) then it's posted in that timeframe. Not carried over as you wish.

It's not just GEMB.  Call Visa, Mastercard, Dicsover, Capitol One...call them all.  They will tell you that the banking system is exactly as I described.

As for staying away from GE Money Bank?  Good luck with that.  They handle the finances for just about every retail outlet left standing.  HH Gregg, Lowe's, JC Penney, Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, Dillard's, Gap, Belk, Amazon.Com, American Eagle, Banana Republic, Brooks Brothers, eBay's Paypal, Home Shopping Network, Lord & Taylor, Mervyns, Old Navy, Men's Wearhouse, QVC, Sotheby's and a few others I cannot remember at the time of this posting.

General Electric is one of the largest corporations in the world, and still growing.  From time to time I see customers saying "I'll just go to K-Mart or CostCo".   You're free to do what you wish, however, K-Mart and CostCo probably won't be around in the next few years. 

My advice?  Either make good with GE Money Bank and the clients it represents or spend your money elsewhere.  I'm afraid in the end, as far as retail outlets are concerned, you won't have much of a choice in the coming years.

You may think I'm being harsh or arrogant. I'm not.  I haven't resorted to calling you names or even stating the obvious that other readers like myself know. 

Have a great day.

MEGEGEME 

I bought the TV on June 14.  I made the first payment at the end of June, before the bill came.  I'M GOING TO SIT DOWN TO PAY BILLS ON PAY DAY. I'm not making a special bill pay session just for GE money bank just to fit their archaic greedy billing computer programming.  Your message did not appoligise for the arragance of your employees on the phone.  My payments were only technically late per your computer, NOT actually late. THEREFORE I did not owe you an extra $80.  The Indian employee should have taken off the late charge willingly rather than defending the greed.

I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH HH GREGG OR GE MONEY BANK AGAIN AND I RECOMMEND OTHERS STAY OUT OF THERE TOO not only because of your greedy computer programming but also because of the arragance of your employees in defending this problem including your messages here.

Hello author.  Your term "very early" was the problem.  My comments on the process aren't difficult to uinderstand at all. 

Just make your payments between your "cycle" date to get credit for that month.  Paying early is ok, but you MUST make a MINIMUM payment each month regardless of how much you pay or how early you send payments (unless your acct balance is zero).

Surely that's not too difficult?

Pay hits my account on the last banking day of the month. This varies by where Saturdays and Sundays fall each month. On payday, I pay my bills using my bank's bill pay feature. The bank sends 'checks', some electronically, some real paper checks through the mail.  Where companies (cable company, power company etc.) have provision to accept electronic income, they get it in 2 days after I hit go on the transfer.  I'm pretty sure GE Money Bank had that ability. 

There may have been a way I could have set up payments to match GE's program. It was too complicated to follow and why should I have to sit down to pay bills twice just to match GE's picky fine print. 

The big thing was how ugly there people were.

GE Money Bank, Your explanation of 'how it is supposed to work'  was VERY complicated. It's a lame attempt to make ME responsible for when my payments get through the processes.

I made the loan payments very large and VERY early.  Any reasonable person looking at the payments I made would clearly see that the account was not in arrears.  The complexity of your processes do not justify your attempt to extort late fees from me. 

The problem was compounded by your employee INSISTING that I owed the late fee when he looked at my payments and saw that I was ahead.  I would not have written my ripe off report if the GE agent had politely removed the late fee when he saw my account was not in arrears.  He did not. He was insistant about my following your complicated policy and lectured me about when I should time my payments to meet the requirements of your small print so the payment would not be considered late. 

SHAME ON YOU for such insidious fine print!  Double shame on your people for being so arrigant and verbally combative.  Your policies ARE greedy.

I obviously don't know the the specfics of when you made your payments or when your due date was.  With that in mind I will stress that GE Money Bank is a "bank". Your credit limit is a "loan".   The "bank" issues you a loan with expectations of when you will pay your bill so they know how much liquidity they have to loan to other card holders, cover overheadcosts etc. 

All credit card companies operate on what's called a "cycle" date.  Here's an example:

Your cycle date is between the 5th and the 5th of each month.  (December 5th through January 5th is your billing cycle).

If you make a payment between the 30 days of this cycle, then the funds go towards that particular months statement.  Doubling-up or paying early may seem like a good idea but it's a disaster waiting to happen.  For example.  If you paid $200 on the 10th and another $200 on the 25th, your payment will NOT be "held" or credited to next months statement.  You have to wait until after the 6th (one day after the end of your cycle) for your payment to be posted to your account for the next month.

You can certainly make multiple payment to your account each month if you liike, however, if you make more than 1 payment within your 30 day cycle you run the risk of defaulting on next months payment.

Hope this helps.

MEGEGEME

while researching a diffferent issue with GEMB of my own, I found hundreds of complaints via internet search GEMB Complaints for the same reason you are stating here.   they are very bad about the 0% interest rate - usually its your last payment is late so they can add a 24 months of interest.

If you can PROVE you paid by the DUE DATE - you can file complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and Office of Thrift Supervision.

You keep sying you made your payments at "the end of the month".  What is your due date, and when were the payments made?