GE Money Bank, GE Consumer Finance, Sears fraudulent billing Ripoff Internet

C(Cincinnati),

1. You sound very authoritative, but I don't think you know what you are talking about. All it would take is a Sears employee in danger of losing his job. My window job might not have been his only screw up. To make up the money he lost on this job, he could have submitted a false charge. And GE Money Bank has a ($) incentive not to investigate. They are contracted by Sears to provide financing. How many sales can they reject, hold up, or investigate on the say-so of a customer before Sears cancels their contract?

I never said they got together in a dark room and plotted this, as you seem to imply. It really is not as far-fetched as you think. A lawyer acquaintence who specializes in collections, told me most people would rather pay $1,000 than try to fight it, even if they knew a charge was fraudulent. You are lucky if you have never had anything like this happen to you.

2. I didn't say they did it solely for the $1,000 either. As I just said, it could just be an employee trying to salvage his job.

3. "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."
a. If that was what had happened, a double charge on the same day, the solution would be obvious, as you said.
b. That's not even remotely similar to what happened.

4. "For the most part, the only contact GEMB would ever have with Sears (with regard to individual consumer purchases) 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."
a. That is obvious.
b. However, if a customer disputes a purchase, the credit card company is obligated to investigate it. Take the gas station example. You buy gas at Arco. Four months later another charge from Arco appears on your card statement. You know the charge is false, because you have been buying all your gas from other stations since then. You are NOT obligated to contact Arco to fight with them over the charges. You notify your credit card company the charge is false. They must investigate or remove the charge.

5. "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.
a. Sears and GEMB are not independent the way a car dealership and a bank, savings and loan, or credit union are. GEMB is under contract to Sears.
b. Even so, if you bought a Honda Accord, they delivered a Honda Civic, and they refused to give you the Accord, would you stop making payments? I would. I would take the Civic back. Then, I would call the bank and say, sorry, the car dealer refused to deliver an Accord. The deal's off. And any reputable bank would go after the car dealer and their money back. Of course, I couldn't do that with the window.
c. Whether I liked the window or didn't like it was not the issue. It wasn't the window I signed up for. It was the wrong size, according to the sketch made during the sale.

6. "If you had Identity Track during this time, why didn't you see these negative marks on you bureau?"
Good question. I'm wondering about that, too. I don't know. Maybe that's not part of the service. Maybe, it only notifies concerning applications for credit.

7. By the way, this is all moot, now. Received a letter a few days ago from GEMB. They finally investigated my dispute of the $1,000. Turns out Sears made a clerical error. Basically, they undercharged me for the window job. The job was $3,305 and GEMB removed it from my card for about three or four months while I first disputed the window size issue. When Sears re-entered the charge, they keyed in $2,305. Several months later, when I paid it, I thought it was paid in full.
Four or five months after that, Sears caught their error in an internal audit, and added a confusing number of credits and debits, the end result of which was a $1,000 charge on my account to recover their money. This entire debacle could have been avoided entirely if either Sears or GEMB had taken the trouble to simply explain the charge when I first questioned it.

8. By GEMB refusing to investigate my dispute, and Sears refusing to explain the $1,000 charge, they created liability for themselves. The damage to my credit caused me financial loss, which I fully intend to pursue in small claims court. There are consequences for mis-steps by big corporations as well as for "little people"l. You just have to get angry enough to do something about it. If I hadn't gotten angry about the switcheroo on the window, I wouldn't even have the right window.