GE Money Bank, GE Consumer Finance, Sears GE & Sears fraudulently trying to recover losses on screwed up home improvement job Ripoff Rapid City South Dakota

I'm sorry to see that you have this problem, but the theory that Sears and GE got together to somehow recoup money is quite absurd.

Response: Of course, you are right that they didn't meet in a dark room and plan it cloak and dagger style, but that is not what I meant. A more likely scenario was that my bungled window job was not the salesman's first mistake, and out of possible fear of being fired, he tried to recoup the money by entering a false charge and claiming a billing error. To understand the possible collusion, you have to realize that GEMB is under contract to Sears, to provide credit for Sears Home Improvement.

If GEMB were to aggressively investigate every customer's complaint about Sears' bungled home improvement jobs, then Sears would drop them and get someone else to provide the credit. You have to realize that Sears pays GEMB a fee for every job they finance. So, in other words, Sears and GEMB are joined at the hip. That's what I meant when I wrote about them as if they did this together. They didn't in the sense that you meant, but they could very easily have done it in the sense that I meant.

Do you remember the case a few years ago, when a Sears or WalMart, can't remember which one now, anyway, a person was having new tires put on their car, and an employee stole the person's car. The company claimed they weren't liable; they argued they couldn't be held responsible for criminal acts of their employees. I'm not sure, but I think that when story hit the major media, they backed off and compensated the customer.

The bottom line is this. If you don't scream bloody murder when it appears you are being ripped off, that makes it easier on whoever is ripping you off. And, if I was not being ripped off, then why wouldn't Sears or GEMB explain or investigate the charges and credits? Like most people, my imagination becomes very active when a company avoids giving a simple reasonable explanation.

Nobody would take the time or effort to come up with a scam for such a small loan.

Response: Of course, Sears or GEMB wouldn't. I didn't say it was their policy to scam customers, but an individual employee might. Then, it is up to Sears or GEMB to take responsibility for it.

If you somehow got charged both times the job was done, you need to deal with Sears. It's just like a credit card, if someone at a store or gas station swipes it and charges you twice, they are at fault, and you need to tell them to reverse the charges.

Response: Wrong. You can, if you want, make it your business to call the store or gas station, but you don't have to. If you think it was an honest but careless mistake, you can call the store or gas station and ask them to reverse the charges. Two charges for the same amount would be a no-brainer. That might be easier, but you don't have to do that.

Anyway, that's not even close to what happened in my situation. I thought it was fraud from the beginning. Several charges and credits showed up on my bill, the net result being a $1,000 charge. As soon as I saw the error, I called GEMB and told them I thought it was fraud. They refused to explain the charge, and they refused to investigate. The was in violation of the account terms and conditions, and the law.

A better analogy would be that you used your Union 76 Gas Card, then switched to Arco because it's cheaper. But, five months after you cut up your Arco card, a charge for gas appears on it. You call the number on your Arco billing statement, and they talk to you like a deadbeat who doesn't pay his bills. They tell you to call the station. You call the station and they don't answer the phone four different times during regular business hours. You get pissed because you are doing the work of the finance company that provides that Arco (probably VISA) card. You think it's fraud because you cut up your Arco card five months ago. So, you write a letter to the appropriate address on your billing statement. No one responds. You write a second letter. No one responds. Now, no one will answer the phone either, Arco or the finance company, because when you call, a machine answers and says to enter your card number. When you enter your card number, the machine says your account has been referred to collection and you may not speak to customer service until you pay your bill. This goes on for five months.

For the most part, the only contact GEMB would ever have with Sears is in the initial credit granting process. Many times the bank employees don't know what the specific purchase was for, especially for larger items. They wouldn't be able to give you specifics on the purchase, just the amount and where it came from.

Response: I thought it was fraud from the beginning. I only asked GEMB for the specifics in case there was a simple explanation. When GEMB could not give specifics, I told them I had a zero balance the previous several statements, and I had not used the account since then, and I suspected fraud. They refused to investigate it. The fact that they refused to investigate it made me suspect they had more knowledge of the charge than they were willing to admit.

If there was negative information on your credit bureau, this is your fault. GEMB doesn't care whether or not the window was to your liking; they just gave you money, that's it. If you take out an auto loan, and for some reason you are dissatisfied with the vehicle, do you stop making payments, NO.

Response: Give me a break. You really do not know what you are talking about. Do you really mean to say that if you bought a Honda Accord, for example, and the dealer delivered a Honda Civic and refused to exchange it for the Accord you signed up for, you would be obligated to keep making payments on the Accord because the Civic was not to your liking? Just keep the Civic and shut up, eh? And, the negative information on your credit report would be your fault? If you believe that, you are the perfect customer, a doormat completely ignorant of your rights. The window wasn't not to my liking, it was a standard window, and I ordered a more expensive custom sized window.

If you had Identity Track during this time, why didn't you see these negative marks on you bureau?
Response: I don't know. It didn't show up. Not a very good service, I suppose.

Now, if you've read this far, don't quit now, because I finally received a letter from GEMB explaining the charges. Take careful note of that. If they are not obligated to investigate possible fraud, they why did they?

It turns out that when I objected to Sears about the wrong window being installed, GEMB backed the charges out of my billing statement. I never called them or asked them to do that. At that time, I was only dealing with Sears. See how they are joined at the hip? They probably have a GEMB employee working at Sears.

For a few months, my account was at zero. When the window job was finished satisfactorily, Sears re-entered the charges but made a billing error. Instead of re-entering the original charges of $3,305.00, they re-entered $2,305.00. According to the finance agreement, I still had several months interest free, didn't have to pay it then and didn't catch the error.

By the time I paid it months later, I had forgotten the exact amount but with that 305 in the amount, it looked sort-of right, and after some haggling over the interest-free period, I paid it in August, 2005.

By January, 2006, I did not see any connection between the questionable charges and credits and the earlier window job, except some numbers had the 305 in it. That was why, when GEMB and Sears would not explain or investigate the charges, I began to suspect there was some monkey business going on related to the window job.

Let me make this clear. The one time I managed to get through to Sears after the account was referred to collection, even the Sears customer service person could not tell me that the charges were for. She said, literally, I can't tell what it is, and your account is frozen because it has been referred to collection.

So that's what it was, a correction of an earlier billing error by Sears. An internal audit at Sears had uncovered the billing error, about five months after I had paid my bill in full (I thought).

Looking back, I know a possible reason I might not have recognized the billing error in the first place. When I told Sears to take the first window out and install the correct custom window, a store manager called me to offer me a discount, $500 I think, to simply accept the standard window. Months later when Sears mis-entered the $2,305.00, I might have associated the difference with the discount offered by the store manager. Yeah, I know he offered $500 and the billing error was $1,000, but they happened months apart and I might have just vaguely recalled something about a discount. Now that I know what the billing was for, I am sure it was correct, and I have no problem paying it.

But, that doesn't relieve Sears and GEMB of the liability they created for themselves by the error. Make no mistake, the billing error was Sears' error, and GEMB failed to investigate when I disputed the charge. They both failed Customer Service 101, but the first two things are what created legal liability for them.

They damaged my credit. I was refused a loan. I could not go forward with a quoted job to install solar panels on my house. A valuable rebate program expired during that time. Interest rates went up. All because Sears and GEMB would not explain or investigate charges on a bill and treated me like a deadbeat instead. Sad, isn't it?

Well, they are entitled to their money, and I'm entitled to compensation for my losses. I'll pay my bill, and I'll submit a bill to them for my losses. Let's see if they pay their bill. Let's find out who the real deadbeats are.

I'm sorry to see that you have this problem, but the theory that Sears and GE got together to somehow recoup money is quite absurd. Nobody would take the time or effort to come up with a scam for such a small loan. If you somehow got charged both times the job was done, you need to deal with Sears. It's just like a credit card, if someone at a store or gas station swipes it and charges you twice, they are at fault, and you need to tell them to reverse the charges. For the most part, the only contact GEMB would ever have with Sears is in the initial credit granting process. Many times the bank employees don't know what the specific purchase was for, especially for larger items. They wouldn't be able to give you specifics on the purchase, just the amount and where it came from. If there was negative information on your credit bureau, this is your fault. GEMB doesn't care whether or not the window was to your liking; they just gave you money, that's it. If you take out an auto loan, and for some reason you are dissatisfied with the vehicle, do you stop making payments, NO. If you had Identity Track during this time, why didn't you see these negative marks on you bureau?