GE Money Bank review: lowering credit limits again! ( 59 comments)

I am smack in the middle of buying a house (Wish my luck in this economy!) and GE Money lowered credit limits on three of my accounts. The first one was PayPal and I thought "Well, I never use them anyway" and let that slide. The second one was Lowes and I thought "Ok, I don't really use them anymore either". The third one was WalMart and I thought "Is my credit REALLY getting that bad?"...well...after a long conversation with a close friend who is also my mortgage broker for my home purchase...my credit GREAT until GE Money lowered all of the limits and increased my debt-to-income ratio! So over the past two months I have had to scrape up enough money to get the balances paid down...ONCE AGAIN...to 50% of the available line of credit.

I am praying that they do not go back and lower any of them again. If they do, GE Money and I will be going to court and they will be buying me a house.

I had called them and said "You have lowered my credit limit and I only pay minimum payments...I know how this works, you charge the finance charge each month and eventually if I only keep paying the minimum I'll go over the limit and you will charge me an over limit fee AND raise my rate"...customer service stated "We don't charge over-limit fees sir"...is this TRUE?

I told her "You better HOPE they don't charge over limit fees ma'am because if they do SOMEBODY is going to COURT!"...then I slammed down the phone.

Yeah, waaaayyyy too much coffee.

I love this site!

Same thing here happened in October and on now on two other cards. I was shocked to see that so many of my cards are through GE. Both cards that were dropped had a zero balance and were dropped to a 10th of my previous limit. My credit score is almost 800! Our money is helping these companies and this is what they are doing to people!

I've already had GE lower the limits on 2 of my cards - the first one was a Old Navy card, and I never used it so I didn't care. The second one was a Walmart card. That one p&ssed me off and I called them over it. I told them that I knew for a fact my credit score was better at the time they lowered my limit than when they gave me the card in the first place. I also reminded them I had NEVER went over my limit and had ALWAYS paid more than the minimum due each month. As a matter of fact they lowered my limits right after I paid each card off. So I told them to shove the Walmart card. Then today I get a letter saying their cutting the limit on my JC Penney's card. I wouldn't care except this is pushing my available credit vs debt ratio sky high! I thought the government was supposed to step in and do something to stop the credit card companies from screwing consumers...I guess that will happen when pigs fly.

I SEE THAT I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT YOU HAVE DONE DOWN RIGHT DIRTY. I HAD A lOWE'S CREDIT CARD WITHB ONLY $300 CREDIT . I HAVE NEVER BEEN LATE HAVE ALWAYS PAID MORE THAN MY PAYMENT AND YOU CANCELED IT. BECAUSE YOU SCANED MY CREDIT REPORT . THAT ISM NOT RIGHT ! NOT RIGHTN AT ALL !

I WILL PASS THE WORD HOW DIRTY YOU ARE TO PEOPLE .

ANGRY, MS CAREY

I completely agree with you, GE Money is a Rip off! I hate this company because they are cruel and heartless. My husband got laid off and when we couldnt make our payment on time they doubled our payment! Now we have been trying to catch up for a year and it's never ending, we always have late fees and overlimit fees because of two months that my husband had no job and we couldnt pay anything.

Same thing happened to me ! I tried to be kind and talk to them and ask them if they could at least change that I cancelled the account, myself ( which i know can be done) and they called me names and yelled at me ! I asked to talk to another supervisor and they said that would have to be the president and he does not have time for a PEON like me ! Can you believe that ? I am not sure where to go from here, my credit is fine and I have never been late and then this and they said that they report it as a delinquency ! How can that be legal ? !

I haven't been watching a lot of what's happening with Obama cracking down on the credit card companies but I know it's going to be good. I know the credit card companies are no longer going to be able to charge outrageous fees and interest, hopefully these issues with GEMB lowering credit limits will stop too.

Admittedly, I did not have wonderful credit when I applied for my GEMB accounts; however since I have opened the credit lines I have worked very hard to improve my credit rating, enough to purchase a home. For them to basically say "Oops, we noticed that WAY BACK WHEN you have blemishes on your credit, so we're taking it away from you" should be completely illegal.

I wonder how many people have proof that this lowering credit limits really affected them in a negative way, for example, losing out on a purchase of a new home...etc.

Anyone had this problem?

I worked for GE in Australia. We should spread the word! Thier bonus structures are based on ripping people off. Get the fat cats fatter and have all of the workers get nuthin. ### GE fraudsters, should be shut down and given no federal funding.

I just got a letter in the mail today stating that two of my GEMB credit cards with HHGregg and Care Credit have been totally cut off! Luckily neither one had a balance and I havent used them in months. I really didnt care about the HHGregg, but Im having dental work done in 3 days and was going to use my Care Credit to cover the extra expenses that insurance won't pay! Now it's going to say on my credit report that "Credit Line Closed-Closed by Credit Grantor", now how is that supposed to help me in the future when no one will give me credit because they think I didn't pay or anything, when I paid both of those cards off myself! I am SO MAD! I know my credit is not perfect, but this did not help me at all!

I got my Walmart Discover, backed by GWMB, over two years ago with a limit of $3k...fine since I know that I would never charge that much on it anyway. After the first year they lowered my limit to $1600 still fine with me because I was still not near the limit then lowered it again to $1k and yesterday to $500. I was fine with the lowering up until $500. I've never been late on any cc payment of any of the cards in my portfolio and never had any over the limit charges on my cards. When I found out my limit was lowered to $500 I nearly hit the roof, I called the payment center because my balance was $498 on Thursday so I made a payment of 98.00 but since it takes up to 72 hrs to process a payment and the billing cycle started on Friday, the new interest in the amount of $3.00 and some change was added to my bill causing me to YES be OVER THE LIMIT. While the CSR ensure me that I would not incur any over the limit fees as a result of this, I got to work this morning and received an email alert that changes have been made to my credit report. Low and behold I check my credit report and the ### reported to all 3 credit bureaus that I am OVER THE LIMIT...obviously potentially negative reporting on my report and will ding/lower my score. Even though they said they would correct the reporting, I'm happily paying my balance off completely this week and never using their card again. Citibank and BankofAmerica are the only companies that I hold accounts with that haven't resulted in lowering limits and both offer better interest rates.

Yes I agree. The problem for all of us to find some serious legal help. Like can we petition the Gov in a way to show them the fraud? Can you get other (Ex) employees to step up and join in the cause. THERE MUST BE an answer here. We are all complaining so how many people does it take to get some sort of action?

I thoroughly agree with this complaint. GE Money Bank is a fraudulant company with an extremely number of rude and arrogant employees. We were within 4 months of having our 12-month same as cash purchase paid off when our troubles began. Each month they (to coin another's phrase on this site "for some unknown and unexplained reason") have no idea why the posting doesn't appear until AFTER the due date. In both cases payment was mailed to arrive on time. GE Money Bank purposely does not post to gain $39 extra in late fees, which they will not remove. That $39 means a tank of gas to me. This company, its executives and all its holdings should be under the scrutiny of the Attorney General of the State of Florida.

Don't you get some sort of statement and have a due date to know you need to mail a payment in? Web services are not available from everyone and you seem shocked you have to still pay for something you bought with someone else's money?

Have you had a sane conversation with a regular person in customer service for suggestions on ways to avoid the late fees?

Ever since the Recession started they have been getting worse. They jacked up both my cards on what they called paying late one time. Went from 7.5% and 12% & to 29.99%. Some of the most Crooked ### I have seen thru this Recession.

We too have had GE Money Bank not post our online payment it was posted almost 2 weeks later and would have caused us late fees .On our very first payment which we sent in 2 weeks before our payment due date appeared on our statement as late and was charged a late fee. We called and ask why it took so long to post the payment they claimed they didn't receive it on time we replied my GOD do we have to send our payment a month in advance or what so we started doing it online still it is taking up to two weeks, what the heck is going on...

Well I decided to remodel my kitchen, bad economy or no. I got 3 items on payment plans - or deferred interest: my cabinets, my flooring and my appliances. My appliances were on a deferred interest plan through - you guessed it - GE MONEY!. What a mistake! I will tell you one thing. Since I was 16 years old I have paid every payment I ever owed anyone and on time if I could possibly do it even with being just a kid or in college whatever. I even went to college with 2 children for over 8 years and still managed to do it - keeping my credit golden. So - shock when GE Money is calling EVERY payment late!? I am not kidding. I call every time and argue that it could not possibly be late as I mailed it off over 9 days ahead of time OR I even paid online before the deadline and yet they still show a late fee on my next bill? Are you serious? So today I called and spoke to "Lloyd" and he said as a "courtesy" they will waive half my late fee. I said it was NOT late! and then speak to "Carol" who is afraid to give me her last name...and she says yes it shows you have been late 8 times in the last 12 months. I said really? Hmmm. I have 3 houses, 3 cars, a business and don't remember having anyone tell me I've been late on a payment. Now consistently I am late with YOUR company which does not make sense because you say my interest is only deferred if I make my payments on time so I am worried I will be late and make extra sure to make every payment in plenty of time...and I tried this last month to pay online but I had an error...I sent them an online email about it. Yet they did not get the email and said she could not "validate" my error as I did not call (it was after hours) and that she had not heard of any problems with the online system. I said - ok I literially yelled - "so you are calling me a liar!?" Then she said in her sing song nicey voice" No, I am just saying we cannot validate...so we can do nothing. So I said. Ok game on. I want a summary of my account with you. I will go over it and write a letter..and I will cc: Better Business Bureau, The Attorney General, the place I bought my appliances through, etc. We are now officially at war. I can't believe they can stay in business and pull these tactics. I would believe maybe 1 or 2 times late over 12 months - and then maybe late just 1 day but not 8? I told her she could look at my credit history which is golden...and look how many times I was ever reported late: 0. Please, I beg you. If you have had problems with them as I have we have to stick together, we have to band together and write letters and file complaints. Its the only thing that can make a difference. I refuse be to taken advantage of quietly.
Deana In Washington

I have been making minium payments on my credit card and the finance charge is 29.9% so my 225.00 payment is going towards the 289.00 finance charge. Spoke to numerous people and they said sorry that is our rate and we c an not help you with this matter. the representative was rude and just didn't care. I am wasting my hard earned money on this card and I can not afford to pay them at this outragous rate.

I'm having the exact same problem. I live in CT and I'm in the process of contacting the attorney general to see if that sort of % rate is even legal.

Can someone please step in and stop these ### from ruining good credit worthy customers. This is unbelievable!
I has several GE accounts and they're being lowered one by one. I've never being late and have always paid more than the min.
We need help!