GE Capital Cons Card Company Misleading Billing for same-as-cash Bassett Furniture purchase Mason Ohio

Buyers, beware, if your large purchase Same-As-Cash financing is to be done through GE Capital Consumer Card Company!

The first time we purchased furniture (a $5,000 dining room suite) at Bassett Furniture in Austin, Texas, the same-as-cash company offered to us was Travelers. We did a one year SAC, and Travelers' minimum payment required on our statements was indeed the correct amount needed for us to pay our purchase off in time to avoid any interest charges at the end of that year. Very easy for a busy, working mom - grab the statement, look at the minimum payment due, write the check, mail it. It was a smooth transaction and the right way for us to make a major purchase.

A year and a half ago, we purchased over $2,500 in living room furniture from Bassett again and were told they no longer used Traveler's for their SAC financing. We applied for credit with the new company offered to us - GE Capital Cons Cardco. (I think it's ironic that their company actually prints their statements with the word "cons" in its name...!)

We have been making at least or more than the minimum payments that GE Capital Cons Cardco has stated is our minimum payment on our each of our statements. Imagine my sick feeling as I tried to do some 2003 household budget work a couple of weeks ago...Here I am 8 months out from my final payment date and realize there is no way in hell that those amounts that GE Capital Cons Cardco has been quoting me will pay off our account in time to avoid the more than $600 in interest charges we will allegedly owe them. Instead, I will have to start increasing payments by more than double, something not easy for our now one-income household.

Of course, I dug through our paperwork to read that ever-popular fine print. No enlightenment there, at least not to my non-legal-background eye. Even on the statement, the consumer is led to believe that if you make at least the minimum payments, you will avoid your interest charges.

I called GE Capital to discuss this, assuming that my minimim payments had been incorrectly calculated. The customer service rep was incredibly rude and basically insinuated that I was stupid for not taking the time to calculate out myself that I would have had to make much larger payments and "anyone can figure that out. Everything's there right in front of you. We just give you a minimum payment amount, but it 's up to you to decide how much you need to really pay."

When I told her I considered that to be misleading and wondered if either GE Capital Cons Cardco or Bassett Furniture had ever been sued under the Deceptive Trade Practice Act, she blew up at me and told me if I wanted to sue them or thought I could, I could go right ahead.

Hmmm...now there's a thought.

Instead, she wanted to focus on my "late payments" (we're talking days, folks, not months!) but could not discuss in an open matter my concern about the issue of my original principal balance not being addressed in an ethical manner by GE Capital Cons Cardco.

I filed a complaint with Bassett on their website, which I'm sure went to some legal person. I was advised that there is nothing they can do to remedy the situation, that I needed to call the customer service line for GE Capital Cons Cardco back and speak with a supervisor (yeah, so I can be abused again???), and that I needed to contact the dealer if I was having a problem with a finance provider. So I guess Bassett is a franchise operation? Haven't gotten around to researching that one yet...

Don't get me wrong...my husband and I have every intention of paying this debt. I have never in my life walked away from a debt. But I will be damned before these people get this interest money from me. We'll take out a loan from the credit union, if necessary, before they GE gets a dime of that interest money. And from what I've read from some other postings on GE Capital Cons Cardco, we'd better do it plenty early so they can't claim we did not pay in time (thanks for that heads-up!).

My point (aside from wanting to vent) is this: Why can one finance company (Travelers) do the right thing by their customers and have the payment information made readily available to them so that they can avoid a bad situation like this, but another one (GE Capital Cons Cardco) makes their customers dig out calculators and calendars and really dig to find the real answers? I think we know the answer to my question.

Suffice it to say, I won't be shopping at Bassett for the bedroom suite my little boy will be needing in the next year. And anytime I consider a SAC agreement, I will need to bring my attorney to the point-of-purchase so that he can analyze the paperwork before I sign off on anything. Crazy.

Rachelle
Austin, Texas
U.S.A.

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