Thread: Bill Collectors (rant warning)

OK, someone in his thread sated that paying early is just as bad as paying late. That is how you know banks suck. Just by that mere statement.
I Have NO credit card/ debt. Why? because credit card companies

SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!

I would be happy to pay reasonable fees for bank/credit card services. The problem is that they are no longer reasonable.

I stand by my statement.... Oh....I forgot, the BANKS forgot to live by their own standards, they spent too much and the US Government (my substantial tax money) had to bail them out.

I do business with a bank that did not take money from the government.

That is all!!

You guys.

All this talk of "buy only what you can pay for". Don't you know we live in a consumer driven society. If you don't spend, spend , spend how's the economy going to recover. How are rich guys like me going to be able to get our dividends and great interest rates and returns on our investments. Heck I just put a deposit down on another new Jet Aeroplane I gotta be able to pay for it on your backs afterall.

Every month the credit company will run a monthly billing, sending the customer a bill with a total balance, minimum payment and a due date.

The outstanding balance on that date determines the new payment due.

I still don't understand the objective of this thread

Originally Posted by Navaja

Every month the credit company will run a monthly billing, sending the customer a bill with a total balance, minimum payment and a due date.

The outstanding balance on that date determines the new payment due.

I still don't understand the objective of this thread

Me either, I just wanted to rant a little bit.

That really sucks...

If they continue this behavior, report them to your state's Attorney General. You may find that you are not the only one who has encountered this type of credit harrassment. It ounds to me that they have a scam going to force consumers to pay the outstanding balance on their accounts early.

BTW...wasn't GE Credit one of the financial institutions which received a federal bailout for bad mortgage loans?

Originally Posted by Navaja

Every month the credit company will run a monthly billing, sending the customer a bill with a total balance, minimum payment and a due date.

The outstanding balance on that date determines the new payment due.

I still don't understand the objective of this thread

The rant was the whole idea of getting a late fee for paying early. Due to the nature of the loan they don't actually have a payment due, just a minimum payment amount. It's like a credit card but interest is deferred for 6 months, and I didn't realize until after I got the first statement that there was a "minimum payment". However, since I had already paid $75 (min payment was $15) during that month I didn't act on the statement. What I missed was that the "statement date" was May 5, and the date I paid was May 3. So while the $75 was deducted from my finance amount, it didn't count towards my may statement. I just thought it was dumb, that's all.

BTW, this is regarding my first payment on this account, so I didn't have any previous statements to go by.

It doesn't seem so complicated to me. $500 interest free for 6 months is about $2.50 in your pocket, if instead of paying immediately you put the money somewhere at 1% annual interest.
Whether it's worth going through a loan application, and then servicing that loan isn't for me to decide, as there are probably more important intangibles beyond the direct financial gain.

Since you're 24 hopefully you've learned a lesson - you have to understand the contract you're signing on and stick to the terms no matter whether they make sense to you or not. That's something to think about before, not after you sign on. The contract says they will send you a bill every month and you have to pay the minimum payment within a set period after that. You clearly failed to do it, hence the penalty.

Of course, the bank is counting that a lot of people are not going to repay the loan on schedule or not within the interest free period and they'll make money from the penalty fees and the interest beyond the 6 month period. The fact that it has worked for decades and continues to work only shows that the banks are smart enough to understand the psychology of their clients and take advantage of it.

I think if somebody is naive enough to not have the common sense to look after their own interest they will be regularly taken advantage of. Doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, it's a fact and there's only one way to change that.

Originally Posted by bbshriver

While I understand your comment here, business school teaches us that borrowing money for free is always the better deal. That money can then be used to earn interest in another account until its needed, which makes the item "cheaper" in the long run.

For small amounts like a couple hundred dollars, or even thousand dollars, the net gain is insignificant. Add in the hassle you got, and you lose out. Add in the fact that currently the dollar is increasing in value, and you lost out.

Originally Posted by bbshriver

Not mails.. calls. I do not answer the phone if I don't recognize the phone number, and if they don't leave a message on my voicemail then I continue to ignore the number. In this case they were persistent enough that I put the number into Google to see who it was, and saw GE Money so I picked up next time.

Yes sorry that was a typo. I meant calls.
But why on earth would you do that?
I understand if you don't pick up AFTER the first time, but how on earth can people contact you for pressing problems if you don't pick up the phone?

Originally Posted by bbshriver

Maybe it works different where you live, but I always pay more than the minimum payment. On any interest bearing account (credit card) I pay the full amount every month. On my home loan I usually pay an extra $100 or so on each statement. On the mattress account I have to pay just under $80/month to be paid in full at the end of 6 months (the end of the interest deferment period), so the $15 minimum payment is wholly inadequate. I've never once had a bank or lender question me for paying "too much".

payments for utilities like water, electricity, etc all expect to be paid exactly on time, for the exact amount. Otherwise the automated systems will require human intervention.

Originally Posted by jhenry

That really sucks...

If they continue this behavior, report them to your state's Attorney General. You may find that you are not the only one who has encountered this type of credit harrassment. It ounds to me that they have a scam going to force consumers to pay the outstanding balance on their accounts early.

BTW...wasn't GE Credit one of the financial institutions which received a federal bailout for bad mortgage loans?

This was not credit harassment. He failed to adhere to the terms of the contract, and ignored subsequent written letters and refused to accept the telephone calls.

Failing to read the contract does not absolve you of the resulting problems, and by ignoring 2 different forms of communication (the letters and the calls) you cannot claim goodwill or due diligence anymore.

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

OK, someone in his thread sated that paying early is just as bad as paying late. That is how you know banks suck. Just by that mere statement.
I Have NO credit card/ debt. Why? because credit card companies

Banks can only accept money if they know it is coming and what they have to do with it. They are not old western style Scrooge McDuck vaults where the director takes a swim in the cash.

Banks accept millions of transfers every month via automated systems. Those automated systems can only handle money if they know what to do with it. They only know what to do with it if they expect it. They can only expect it if they know in advance when it will come, how much it will be and where it has to go.

Let's make the analogy with a Bakery. The baker needs x amount flour to make bread for a week. He gets weekly deliveries in order to have enough to support his business. The flour supplier can't just say 'hey, I know I am way too early, but here is your flour for the next 2 months'. The baker won't know what to do with that flour either. He can't accept it because he simply doesn't have the space to store it.

With bank payments, the problem is space as well. if money comes in way too early, the automated systems have no idea where the money should go. So they forward the transaction to a human being. This costs money. If thousands of people start doing this, the bank needs to hire extra people, just to process payments from people who fail to live up to the terms of the contract. If those people then also refuse to answer letters and phone calls, the whole thing get more time consuming and costly.