Ok folks, time for a good ol’ fashioned rant about a financial institution. Such blog entries may be cliché, but I make no apology for my contribution to bank-bashing. Hey, they have it coming so don’t you go feeling sorry for ‘em.

Let’s go to work.

Our story begins when Jennifer arrived in the Summer of 2007. She wasn’t happy with the state of my until then “bachelor pad” and set about on a major refurb. A decent lounge suite was the order of the day so we explored a number of possibilities. We settled on a nice little number from DFS. I won’t pretend they make hand-crafted works of art (they don’t), but we have modest tastes and what we found was comfy and met our needs.

For those who don’t know, DFS is famous for two things: 1. A perpetual sale (that they deny) and 2. four years’ interest free credit with nothing to pay for the first year. Yes folks, welcome to DFS-land where you are loved, cherished and given free sofas (for a year). The reality is probably that they over price their sofas to cover the cost of the interest they won’t make on repayments, so if you paid up front with cash you’re no better off. Hence we opted for some of that fine 0% finance. Mmm mm.

I’ll skip all the detail other than to say we completed all the paperwork and in due course received our sofa and chair. Our repayments were scheduled to commence 12 months later via direct debit from my bank account. Financing was provided by GE Money on DFS’s behalf so it was from them I received a letter 11 months after we’d received our sofa. They advised me my first payment was due, but not to worry because the direct debit would soon kick in; I need do nothing.

This is where it all started to go wrong.

Cock-up #1

Despite their letter of reassurance, GE Money’s direct debit didn’t work. No, the half-wits had set it up a year previously, so my bank had cancelled it. After all, as far as the bank was concerned it was not needed, having sat unused for so long.

The first I heard of this was in an angry letter from GE Money screaming for their money and telling me what a naughty boy I’d been. I sent them a copy of their reassuring letter (now not so reassuring as they clearly had no idea what they were doing) to explain they’d told me to chill.

The situation was resolved and they apologised. Quite right too. However, not trusting them I decided that I would be making the payments to them straight from my bank rather then let them to screw up another direct debit. I set this up as a standing order (something over which I had control) and the payments started making their way to GE Money on a monthly schedule.

Cock up #2

Ok, now CU#2 started due to an error made by me, but their response and customer service was left wanting.

As far as I was aware, my standing order was hitting the spot. Unfortunately I hadn’t been allowing enough days for the payments to reach GE Money so on certain months if my payment send date was at the weekend, it wasn’t reaching them until after the due date.

That was my error and I accept the responsibility. However, GE Money were obliged to send me a warning letter to advise of my errant ways and of the £15 penalty for late payment. They never sent this letter so I was blissfully unaware of my initial indiscretion. In fact they didn’t send it the second time either; I received a letter after the THIRD late payment. Useless wasters.

So, I called their expensive 0870 number and spoke to an operative in a land far, far, away (“Lobotomia” I think it’s called). We had a colourful conversation in which he informed me I was a bad payer. As is often the case with these poorly trained individuals you can ask the same question half a dozen time – phrased slightly differently – and get six different answers. That call was no exception.

Enraged and none the wiser, I wrote a letter to which I eventually got a reply. They did a good job of smoke-and-mirrors making out that I was a bad boy and that I needed to make sure my payments reached them on time (yes, I knew that). However, as a gesture of ‘goodwill’ they were going to refund the late payment charges. Well thanks, but they were going to have to because they’d broken the law by not letting me know the first time I made a late payment. Useless wasters.

Cock up #3

After #2 we settled in to an uneasy truce of me making payments and them not moaning. I brought forward my payment date to make sure the money was reaching them in plenty of time and verything was peachy – until I received a late payment warning letter in the middle of February. Wtf? Why? How? I checked my bank and the money had gone as usual – in exactly the same way it had the month before. So where was it?

There then followed a number of Lobotomia-calls and letters asking where my payment was. Didn’t I know I was being a very naughty boy? Here we go again.

I explained to them I had made my payment and they’d probably lost it. They logged it as a missing payment; I checked with my bank and they confirmed the money had been sent – EXACTLY as it had the previous month. GE Money have graciously agreed to refund any fees, interest and so on if the money turns up. However, it all smacks of their attitude that the customer is always guilty until proven otherwise.

As far as I’m concerned they’ve had my money. What they’ve done with it is neither my concern nor of interest to me. We’re now going to pay the entire outstanding balance (minus the money they’ve lost and their penalty fees) and advise them the matter is now closed.

GE Money provide financial services for many store cards, car sales and supply the credit cards for other firms. Reading around today I have learnt that they do the credit card for Ryanair! Ha! Surely that must be the perfect storm of shite customer service. Pity the poor sods who try and get through to them when they have an issue.