18 Months Same as Cash..Yep!

[GO DAWG GO]

Went to the dentist last July and had some work done. $2500 for a Valplast partial where i'm missing two mollers. The receptionist talks me into openning a GE Capital Consumer credit account to pay for the $2500. She states I have 18 months interest free. I see no contract but sign my life away knowing better. Anyway- 2 months have passed no bill so I call the dental office and get the number for GE. I call and the woman says we sent you a bill but nothings due. I tell here I would like to start paying the account off and I set it up as a Payee in Wells Fargo Bill Pay. I get a bill next month and it states nothing due with a balance of $2300. I pay $200 three weeks later...OK next bill I get a late fee and states payment was made late. Really? How can this be? So I call again and the lady says I will reverse the late fee and I ask what the due amount is and she says next payment of 48 dollars is due in another month...So I continue to pay three times+ the minimum payment and set up my payment everymonth. Didnt pay attention to the bills for a couple of months and just paid the same time. I open the bill last night and it states I have been late 6 times at $30 a pop and they cancelled the no interest and added $400 to my bill. I was ahead 25 days in my payments and what they said was one was made before the due date of the next month so they added both payments to the prior month and put me 5 days behind schedule. Just enough to levy late fees and jamb me...So as I already knew not to get involved with this type of bullsh_t. I keep learning lessons over and over...

Sad thing is I really tried to make sure this couldnt happen and it did anyway because I should have looked carefully a there trickery on the bills. I believe thay are designed to foul you up and get there money...

My argument was that even if I payed it late one month it should have carried over and been satisfied with my payment five days later of 3 times the minimum due the next and not to continue to be late. Thats what every other company does.

I was wondering how they were going to get the interest out of me in the long run. I figured they would screw up the last payment accounting and jamb me for all the interest at the end somehow.

[Tobra]

If you did not sign a contract you do not have one, but you probably signed something. Speak to the dentist about the billing practices of the credit company he is dealing with also, he would be interested I am sure, especially if he were to get his name in the paper.

[GO DAWG GO]

Tobra,

I signed a contract but with no stated details. Its my fault for getting involved. I knew it was too good to be true, free money for 18 Months. You can do it but you have to watch your billing constantly. Beware of the twangers they will throw into the mix . I pay my bills and have good credit, but REALLY dont like Bills...stress... My balance states I owe 1400 and have paid 1650 in 9 monthes. I feel like I got boned for $500 last night..Kinda pissed.

Thanks for your support. But I'm still doing better than Rammstein...

Bob

[Joeaksa]

Had the same when I bought my Mitsu Television. Something like $3500 a while back and 18 months no interest financing. Paid it off in cash at 17 months 2 weeks. They were happy and are still offering me more credit...

[Az911]

Originally Posted by robert_snyder

Didnt pay attention to the bills for a couple of months and just paid the same time.

I bet you will start to look at every statment that comes in from now on. Five minutes of your time could have saved you hundreds of dollars.

[strupgolf]

I always look at the contracts. I always take 12-18 months/same as cash. I always pay it off before they can screw me. Learned over many years of buying. My accountant is the best one I've found, she's my wife.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

GECCC sucks. They ended up holding my motorcycle loan after Conseco Finance (another even worse bunch of white-collar crooks) went bankrupt. Absolutely terrible to deal with in all respects. I'm frankly surprised you were even able to get a human being on the line at all.

[Mo_Gearhead]

These types of loans are very common. They are actually TRAPS for unwary consumers that do not read the FINE PRINT! That being in most cases; here's the product/money ...no interest ...no payments due ...ENJOY. (In fact we hope you forget all about owing us.)

The fine print however states that should you somehow (ahem) forget to pay off said loan by the due date...SURPRISE!! Interest COMPOUNDED for ALL the
proceeding months is now due!

Be careful out there.

[john70t]

The lawyers here can correct this(please), but I think what you entered into may be an illegal "contract by adhesion". Basically, you got the return details/interest terms/etc. after you opened the box.
I'd start with the certified letters asking for return of unjust fees, and gub'mint complaint depts....


When I was 14, I got a checking account through a job and managed to bounce a check for $.11 cents while the parents were out of town for a week.
Every day afterwards I got $10, and $15, notices of late fees(1980s dollars).
At a rate of 10% daily interest the banks' actual loss was about a hundredth of a penny, but they charged me fifty-five dollars.

[island_dude]

The card company can't make your responsible for for late fees if you are paying ahead and my the due date. The best way to deal with this is to document your case and send it in demand that they address it. They have to respond and they have to investigate.

I had some dealings with GE on the commercial credit side. I bought a supercomputer that was financed through GE. They were incapable of managing the payments properly and did all kinds of crazy things. I would get late fees in the thousands and my boss was super ticked off thinking that I was at fault. I eventually got them to give me an itemized list of every transaction on the loan. It was insane. They would show a payment arriving. Sometimes the amount was right and credited incorrectly to the wrong accounts, sometimes they recorded the payment as a lower amount. Months later you would see credit transactions correcting some of the mistakes. At one point they were threatening me personally with repossession! I told them to go ahead a come by to get the machine (there is no way they could get anywhere near it). Crazy.

[ljowdy]

I can't answer for GE but everytime Best Buy has a "no interest" loan, and I need something expensive, I use the "free money" I go in the store with the intentions of paying for the item and I won't buy on credit if I don't have the money available but, if they offer me the free interest, I always take it and so far, no problems as I pay it off at least 3 or more months before it's due.

[aigel]

Just send them your teeth back. Seriously though, I'd just stay away from financing like this. It's not going to put you financially ahead to save interest on a few grand in a couple of years. It will only potentially cost you higher than market interest and may mess up your good credit. My dentist is happy to set up a payment schedule, if it's more than I am willing to pay at once. No interest and no credit card company involved either.

George

[p911dad]

Normally in consumer transactions, like buying furniture, etc. in these "no interest" loans the interest is actually "frontloaded" into the inflated sales price, with the store and the finance company working in tandem. Most sale prices are polite fiction, and you the consumer doesn't know what it's actually worth. So the "no interest for 18 mo. or 2 years or whatever, actually has interest in it, and the salespeople simply are lying about the interest, or are ignorant of the actual details. We found out the hard way, too. The attorney general in NY got into that a few years ago. If it sounds too good to be true, yadda yadda..