GE Money warning

[jrandom]

Finance companies are robbers. Oh actually no its the other way round.

$7500 loan. After one year of paying it off settlement was $9500????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????

You gotta see it from the finance company's perspective.

You're their investment. It's like you giving money to a bank on term investment and planning around the return you'll get off that over the next five years, and then after a year the bank hands it back to you and says, sorry, we don't want your money any more, we won't give you any more interest on it.

And you're left without that income that you planned on, rushing around trying to find somewhere else to invest your money to get the same return, cursing the bank for not following through on the arrangement.

You can see why finance companies try to recover extra interest when a loan's repaid early, aye.

Of course, a bank and a private borrower are two very different things, and different rules should apply.

[Maha]

You can see why finance companies try to recover extra interest when a loan's repaid early, aye.

I have no argument with they that, or what westie was saying.
Fact is, they gave me the chance four years ago to get a motorcycle, and have seen me through three bikes in that time. In May of this year, I was in a posistion to pay for a new bike, but still had money owing on the Triumph and needed to sell it the purchase the new bike. That is the only reason why I called GE. They gave the settlement figure, I requested, I had the money and I paid it. Something very dodgy happened in the following week or two within the GE branch, with the end result being, I did not ask for a Settlement, but a Statement??....thats their official line.

[The Stranger:Me]

But see mate, they only record what they want to be able to state actually happened. Bugger the fact Mark & I have phone records to prove we called them. Because their records dont show it, we didn't, or if we did we must have rung for a chat, no need to record that call.

I had a similar problem with an insurance company Mom.
I placed several calls in one day to the insurer to set up my insurance on a bike and a on a car.
They denied that I placed the call accepting the insurance.
Figuring that they must record conversations in the absence of written and signed documents, I asked them to provide recordings of my conversations, which they eventually provided. Except they couldn't find the last one accepting the insurance.
I provided them with my mobile phone bill showing the calls that they sent me and the additional call and told them to check again. Eventually they did check and did find it. Took a lot of work and several months, but then I can be a dogmatic prick.

[bull]

What a stink situation Mom, perhaps add these other KB experience's and ring Fair Go again, it seems theres enough unhappy customers here for you to compile and present to Fair Go, at the least just advise Fair Go of all the stories in the hope of being able to help any others before they make the same mistakes and go with the oh so trusty GE Finance.

[Mom]

, but then I can be a dogmatic prick.

Me too!

[Motig]

Never Ever have anything to do with GE. Better a mortgage, personal bank loan or a low interest credit card, believe me I know from experience.

[Mikkel]

What a story Sanx - I sure hope that some of GE's "satisfied" customers will show them their appreciation by standing up and speaking out publicly.

Anyone considered talking to consumer magazines, newpapers, reader letters, etc? Plenty of less romantic ways of giving a company bad publicity than Fair Go - NZ is small, word gets around.

Won't work because of the "I want it now" generation are so niaeve finacially. This generation has university educated people engineering trends and tastes. Some how they could be the new low lifes, sort of like lawyers are seen as now.

I don't understand at all what you are trying to say here.

Are you saying that university educated people are naive financially?

Or that university educated people are trying to rip other people off and thus are the neo-low lives?

Or are you saying that this generation have population segments that are especially vulnerable to the lure of un-ethical finance companies, because they are surrounded by a level of wealth unimaginable just 20 years ago - and that the finance companies could be the new low lives?

[vifferman]

Oh yeah - don't deal with GE Finance.
The only real problem we had with them is the way they present the statement of account, or whatever it's called. It doesn't actually tell you stuff like how much you still owe, how much interest you're paying, how much of the principal's paid off, etc. It's very, very deceptive.

If you do have to buy something on interest free, DO NOT just make the minimum payments that are on the monthly account - it's designed so that at the end of the interest-free period, you still have a shitload to pay off, and you're paying BIG interest on it. Get out your calculator, and make sure you pay at least the amount you borrowed divided by the number of payments in the interest-free period.

My wife's a tax accountant, and she couldn't work out what the hell the accounts represented - there's some deliberate obfuscation going on there. I'm surprised they haven't been pinged by the Commerce Commission.

Another sneaky thing they do is try to get you to keep your account with them open after you've paid off a loan. (There's an annual account fee of $25 or summat, BTW). With us, I rang them, got them to tell me Eggs Zachary how much was required to pay our account in full, and then paid them straight away. Hello... the next account comes back 25cents in credit. So I rang them, told them to close our account.
"But it's in credit".
"I don't care - keep it."
"Are you sure you really want to do this? You've got months left before your account is due for renewal."
"Yes."
"There are more stores every day joining GE Money...etc etc blah blah blah."
"Just close it."
"Blah blah blah blah."
"No. No no no NO!"

We now pay for almost everything by credit card, and pay it off before the due date.

[Badjelly]

I learnt a huge lesson a awhile ago. If you can't pay cash, then you can't afford it.

Wise words

And if you do have to get a loan, dont get it from GE!

Apparently, though this piece of advice does seem a little inconsistent with the first. I guess it depends on what you mean by "have to".

I've never "had to" get a hire purchase loan (and I was not well off by any stretch in my 20s). Now I have the luxury of sufficient assets that I will never be tempted to.

[Badjelly]

A few years ago we bought a sort of flash German washing machine from Harvey Normans. The price was great and they had a 12 months interest free deal. No worries, spread the payments over a year. We signed up on Harvey Norman documents but when the bill came through it was on a GE letterhead.

Here is how the scam works....

Thanks for that. These "xxx-months interest free" deals are all over the place and I've always suspected there's a catch.

[Cajun]

If you cant pay cash, then you cant afford it

Well thats a double edge sword, i knew a girl who was like that, paided cash for everything,her car died and was better to get a new one newer car, was earning $70k+ yeah, she had $10k in bank for one, and wanted another $5k, but no one would give her a loan since she had no credit rating. even tho she earnted plenty. and had very small out goings.

Often its good to put things on hp, and pay them off very quickly, to get a good credit rating.

eg i have a couple of things on hp interest free, i can pay for them right now, but they are interest free, money is in the bank to pay for the items, but better in my account earning interest.

[jrandom]

Thanks for that. These "xxx-months interest free" deals are all over the place and I've always suspected there's a catch.

Yeah.

Apart from the dodgy finance structuring, the real catch is that the retailer will offer you the item on finance at its sticker price, 'interest free', but if you have cash in hand they'll give you a significant discount.

In other words, it's not fuckin' interest free, they've just chucked the interest onto the advertised price!

[Boob Johnson]

It's worth it if you're generating income with that asset, of course. Depreciation comes off tax liability, too.

Also, there's the point to consider that life is not just about balance sheets.

I sold investment property for 6 odd years so im well aware of how it all works. It just blows me away for such small amounts of money people are willing to finance (ie pay 2 to 3 times its value while its falling in its original price) when they could of just as easily saved for it! The amount of money saved is so over the top its laughable. All people need to do with finance is multiple the amount they pay each month by the term of the loan...



XYZ Bike sells for $7,000. Payments of $400 a month over 36 months.

400 x 36 = $14400!!!

So now 3 years down the track you have a spent goodness knows how much on the thing in maintenance & repairs. Its now worth $3,000 if you are lucky but you paid how much? Was it really worth it?


Heres scenario two: Buyer saves his pennys, researches the market so he knows what the vehicle he is after is worth at 3 basic price levels.........

1) Premium price
2) Fair market value &
3) A bloody steal.

If he is patient he will wait for the right one to come along & pounce on it when it does appear......with cash. Now you know for a fact you own a bike at a price that was sharp meaning when you go to sell eventually you won't loose much if anything at all.


I made money on my previous two bikes, I will at least break even on my current car & I will make money on my TL when I sell it or minimum break even.


I hear ya about having a lil fun & living life etc but that cop out doesn't wash with me when people freak out when they find out how much they actually paid, Jesus if you don't know EXACTLY what you are in for then you are a bloody fool, I won't say anyone deserves to be in bed with sharks like GE but sheesh, theres only one person lookin out for you.

[Cajun]

Yeah.

Apart from the dodgy finance structuring, the real catch is that the retailer will offer you the item on finance at its sticker price, 'interest free', but if you have cash in hand they'll give you a significant discount.

In other words, it's not fuckin' interest free, they've just chucked the interest onto the advertised price!

No really, i have got discount of the off sticker price, on interest free terms.

[Boob Johnson]

Well thats a double edge sword, i knew a girl who was like that, paided cash for everything,her car died and was better to get a new one newer car, was earning $70k+ yeah, she had $10k in bank for one, and wanted another $5k, but no one would give her a loan since she had no credit rating. even tho she earnted plenty. and had very small out goings.

Often its good to put things on hp, and pay them off very quickly, to get a good credit rating.

eg i have a couple of things on hp interest free, i can pay for them right now, but they are interest free, money is in the bank to pay for the items, but better in my account earning interest.

Im sorry I don't mean any offense but that is complete & utter rubbish, there is 100 finance (ok maybe a few less now) that will fall over themselves to take that deal, including banks. She obviously didn't try enough places or was going about it the wrong way.

See this is the problem, she has $10,000 cash but thats not enough for a vehicle??? WTF!!!! is all I can say lol. Do a lil home work & suss out a buyer who is "going overseas" type thing & buy his $13,000 car for $10,000, now instead of an unnecessary financial hemorrhage you have a saved many many thousands & for what? Using your head & looking around a bit first.

If you MUST have a credit rating buy a bloody toaster