GE Money warning

[Mom]

When is a settlement figure given on a loan not the amount you have to pay? When it is given by GE Money.

After our dealings with this finance company, I would strongly advise no one borrows money from them, or if you have a current loan you seriously investigate refinancing as soon as possible, before you do that though please read below. I am happy to provide my records to support any claim I make here. If you are advised anything verbally by them ask for it in writing, preferable faxed to you while you wait on the phone. Demand they make a full diary note in their log each time you call. Actually tell them to make the note while you are on the phone. Keep good records (better ones than ours) so you might stand a chance of not being lied to and ripped off.

I have put this in General Bike Stuff as I suspect that a lot of us have finance owing on our bikes, no matter the finance company involved.

• Bear in mind here that when you ring GE Money about your loan you are identified to their satisfaction each time you call, they don’t and in fact refuse to discuss or give any information out about a loan until they are satisfied you are the person who has the loan, or are authorised by that person to talk to it.

• They officially keep a “log” of all calls received. Their official log is their Bible, there is no argument, what has been recorded there is the only truth according to them, even if it is typed by a staff member, who may or may not go back and edit the log to suit their story after the fact.

[Mom]

• Make a phone call to GE requesting a settlement figure on your loan, as you want to pay it off and buy a new bike.
• GE verbally advise the amount of $XXXX.xx to pay the loan off.
• Verbal discussion at home whether you can afford to change now – yes you can!
• Call to GE to ask for the bank account number you need to pay this settlement figure.
• Ring your bank to load the bank account number on your internet bill pay, bank queries the account number
• Ring GE and confirm the bank account number is correct – it is the bank account they use to receive settlement monies on motor vehicle loans.
• Make internet bill payment for the quoted settlement figure.
• Ring GE 3 days later to ask for confirmation that they have no security interest in the bike as it is now on Trade Me for sale. They cant find the payment! They ask what number it was paid into and put you on hold while the payment is found. Yes here it is, I will get that applied to your loan, it wont show until tomorrow though, I will send you what you want in the morning.
• 11 days later receive a statement of account showing an outstanding balance still owing of a bit over $3000.00!
• Ring GE as obviously there has been a mistake made. No mistake Sir, you never rang for a settlement figure, our log does not show any record of you calling. This is a normal payment. The loan is paid up now until Nov 2009.

[Mom]

This starts a lengthy process of complaints. By the way they don’t act on complaints that efficiently either. I had to literally hound the Regional Manager by telephone and email to get any kind of action from him at all. I have telephone records clearly showing the dates, time and duration of the calls we made to GE. Thankfully we did not use the 0800 number so they appeared on the bill to support our stance. When I put this to the RM he said we must have rung simply to chat on the times they have no record of our calls in their log! According to them we made 2 calls to GE, one requesting a bank account number to make a payment to and the other to request a statement of account!

[BIHB@0610]

I'm with you here Mom - I had dealings with GE money a few years ago. I wasn't the brightest financial spark - relied on getting a hard copy bill, and putting a cheque in the mail the day after (in hindsight I should have set up an automatic payment but hey, I was young and dumb!). When I didn't get a bill, I'd forget to pay. I'm sure they deliberately sent bills every few months, so they could collect $25 in late payment fees - honest to God, I only got bills every three months or so. When I paid the thing off and wanted to cancel my card, it took about four months of phoning them to finally get the account closed.

Has put me off HP for life! Ok, so maybe they did me a favour ........

[Mom]

After getting exactly nowhere in the complaints process, in as much as each time I raised another issue with the Regional Manager he went to ground for days on end and them came back to me with the same "talk to the hand" response each time. Our log does not show blah, blah, blah.

We ended up paying the outstanding money to get the security off the bike. Although he did actually offer to loan it to us on a new loan, tems and conditions to suit them. The absolute stunner at the end though was the magnanimous way he waived the "late fees" amassed on the loan as Mark had missed payments! How the hell can you get late fees when the loan is paid till November 2009!

Rip off bunch of bastards the lot of them!

[Edbear]

Sadly I am not surprised.

I have never dealt with GE, they keep sending me letters wanting to give me $10,000.

Fair Go may be all this crowd understand?

Sympathies and all the best!

[Mom]

Sadly I am not surprised.

I have never dealt with GE, they keep sending me letters wanting to give me $10,000.

Fair Go may be all this crowd understand?

Sympathies and all the best!

Interestly enough, I contacted Fair Go, they have filed my complaint until they get a few more along the same lines. Anyone else want to complain? Lets expose this company for what they are.

[Kittyhawk]

If you rang through and were asked by an automated system to enter your security details this in some cases will not show on the "who accessed the file?" history as when the call goes through to the operator the details appear.

If how ever you were asked security questions then the log will show someone accessed your file. Im not sure weather the law states that all calls have to be recorded, but if you are unsastified with the outcome ask to speak to a team leader and get them to listen to the call again for clarification.

Not any staff member can get access to edit the calls - get a team leader to listen and confirm details of what acctually happend. Either way track down who took the original call time date etc, and then complain to a team leader, if no sastification, go above them and speak to the manager. There must be a record of the call, especially in a finance company where money is being delt to.

[Mom]

If you rang through and were asked by an automated system to enter your security details this in some cases will not show on the "who accessed the file?" history as when the call goes through to the operator the details appear.

If how ever you were asked security questions then the log will show someone accessed your file. Im not sure weather the law states that all calls have to be recorded, but if you are unsastified with the outcome ask to speak to a team leader and get them to listen to the call again for clarification.

Not any staff member can get access to edit the calls - get a team leader to listen and confirm details of what acctually happend. Either way track down who took the original call time date etc, and then complain to a team leader, if no sastification, go above them and speak to the manager. There must be a record of the call, especially in a finance company where money is being delt to.

Kitty, I got as far up the food chain in that company I could, right to the Compliance Manager for NZ, and that is saying something as they do not give out too many contact details as it is against their POLICY. I even found another 0800 number tucked away on their website. I rang it and got to talk to a woman in India! Trust me this went way past the dickheads in the TAKAPUNA BRANCH OFFICE. I forgot to mention that before.

[Quasievil]

sounds like an early payment penalty, or similiar, not unsual but not a good thing either.

[boomer]

Interestly enough, I contacted Fair Go, they have filed my complaint until they get a few more along the same lines. Anyone else want to complain? Lets expose this company for what they are.

Want revenge? Stab 'em in the eye!


i feel your pain

[CookMySock]

Has put me off HP for life! Ok, so maybe they did me a favour ........

Yup. Use your local credit union.

DB

[Renegade]

i agree with ya here mom, ive had my car finance through them for a year and a half now and i had worked out how muh i had paid off in that time and how much i should have to pay them if i was refinancing so i rang for a settlement figure, it was way more than i had worked out, i reckon they must sting ya for interest they would lose or something, it promptly went in the to hard basket and im still paying it off.

[BIHB@0610]

Yup. Use your local credit union.

DB

So far I've managed to save up or do without (mainly the latter!). My parents always saved up, has stood them in good stead .....

[Dakara]

I've only had 1 dealing with GE and will be the last. I bought a home gym and the store had a 6 month interest free deal with GE. Within 2 days of signing I had a GE credit card arrive with $5000 credit on it (@25%) but no details of how to pay my loan.

I promptly called them to say I'm binning the card, so please deactivate it as I never asked for it, and requested they send me the details so I can arrange to make payments for my gym (as I was a new customer they wouldn't give that info over the phone). I made this call every fortnight for nearly 6 months... and finally 3 weeks before my "Interest free" term was up I recieved the instructions in the mail, also stating that I had 3 weeks to pay the balance in full before they would start chargin me Interest.

I paid them, but am still waiting for payment confirmation so perhaps I should chase them up again.

Anyway, all my "borrowing" these days goes through my Low Interets Visa