I took a loan to buy a car in 2005 and handed over 48 checks. The amount in the check was left unfilled at the request of the GE representative who promised to fill it up, after verifying with his office.
In the first week of Sep 2007, I got a call from GE that my check’bounced’. I was surprised because I could not see it in my account. On deeper probing it was found the amount in figure differed from the amount in words. No one had noticed it
a. At the time of accepting the check before sanctioning the loan;
b. At the time of presenting to the bank
c. After it was returned from the bank.
GE maintained that they never filled the check till I challenged them to a signature verification. I could see something running with its tail between the legs.
It is not efficiency, but a greed as the only culture the company knows.
I agreed to replace the defective instrument with another check minus any penalty, which was not payable by me in the first place. After promising to collect it, the guy never came to collect it inspite of two reminders.
Later, while applying for a loan with a bank, I found that GE had referred my name as defaulter to CIBIL. I sent another flurry of mails, threatened to sue them and after knocking my head with their really stupid managers and CSA’s, with a collective IQ of’0’ or less, they accepted their mistake and agreed to collect the check in the month of March 08. Again, no one came to collect and I sent two more reminders.
Again, in the year of 2009, I took initiative and fought my way up, with all the morons in GE, make them take back the penalty and cleared my dues. I had to suffer so much loss of time, peace of mind and the company went and ruined my credit rating. Unfortunately we live in India to get a compensation from these companies, we have to make it a full time effort. CIBIL is being misused by these companies with no sense of responsibility. It is something to do with culture and GE has consistently demonstrated, that they follow only immoral, unethical and criminal values. In my entire interaction, I did not find a word of honesty coming out of any of the’Senior’ guys/girls.
My experience is similar to yours; GE is callous, manned by ignorant’senior management’, waste a lot of our time and their money(oooh. 6 sigma is bull story from GE, if you have dealt with them. If you calculate how much it cost them to solve this simple problem, which an untrained Gorilla would have in a few minutes, they could have written off my outstanding and made a 500% profit.) and to compensate, overcharge us. It is an unethical company, greedy and in a way alien to Indian values. The CSAs are taught to repeat like a parrot, words that have no relation to your complaint. If you can avoid GE, do it, GE is worse than plague and H1N1 put together.