Respected Sir / Madam,
This is to inform & complaint about a lot of irregularities being carried out at GE Money Financial Services Ltd. due to which I have suffered a lot financially & also lost lot a lot of peace of mind. But their harassment never seems to stop. I have taken a homeloan of around Rs.19.50 lacs from GE in July. Till the loan was not disbursed they were constantly in touch with several calls per day & promises of great service. I have regularly been paying my EMI of around 29300 since then till date & have never defaulted in any of my payments in my entire life. In Apr I called up GE & asked for the interest statement to be filed with my IT returns. They told me that it is not sent but the customer has to visit the Mahim branch & pay Rs. 700/ & take it. Now they make me run for everything. I simply shouted at them & after several calls got it mailed to me without a charge. Then again the same happened in Apr & was again asked to make a payment for the statement which is to be sent as a normal practice free of cost.
To the shock of my life, when I got the new statement, I saw that the tenure of my loan period had been raised to above 33 years from the original 13 years & the rate of interest hiked from 11% to 14%. I agree that the rates have been rising, but is it not the responsibility of the Lender to inform the client & ask him his choice of raising the EMI to save on interest or to raise the tenure if unable to hike up the EMI? Eventually I paid over 5 lacs in the first 2 years by way of EMI & ended up repaying only 30-35 thousand of principle amount. I called up GE & had a huge argument on the phone over why was I not informed, but they said "IT IS NOT OUR DUTY TO INFORM CLIENTS & HOW CAN WE INFORM OUR THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS? " I have since May last year made part pre-payments twice to the total of 9.5 lacs as per their law of only 50% pre-payment allowed without penalty per year. I have abided by their laws even after the above mentioned harassments. I got a call in Dec from GE Delhi, informing me that the rate of interest on my loan is hiked when the higher rates were actually implemented in 2007 itself without information.
Now I got a call from them yesterday saying that the rate of interest is again being raised from 14% by 1.5% & will be 16.5% from the next month. I asked how can 14% 1.5% be 16.5% but the answer was that I will not understand their calculations. I also asked the reason of the hike when all other institutions are lowering their rates. The answer was that the rate in my loan was raised in 2007 & not in 2008 & so they are hiking it now. This is beyond my understanding. I have already borrowed a lot to make pre-payments of 9.5 lacs to reduce the tenure & brought it to 4 years from 33 years & now another large & sudden hike will again take it to over 10 years. Sorry, but I have to say that GE is nothing but a robber of the worst kind. I said that I will again beg or borrow but will try to make at least a 50% pre-payment so that the liability is reduced. But they now insist on penalty charges on the pre-payment & I ask you Sir, is it fair? First the rate hike is not justified at this point in time, secondly even after I accept the illogical & forced hike (as I have no other choice), I cannot try to save myself a little also by making part pre-payment (NOT A CLOSURE) without penalty charges. There also they want to earn profits by way of penalty charges. They are not human in any way. I request you to extend your help & advise at the earliest as these new rates will get applicable soon now. Is the rate hike justified? Is it justified that I be penalized for trying to save myself. I understand that as per their law I cannot make more than 50% pre-payment in 1 year. But that is under normal circumstances when a client has spare funds to pre-pay & wants to save interest, I understand that the lender would want some small share too. But here I am forced by illogical rate hike circumstances to pre-pay. I cannot afford to keep slogging like a dog for years & keep repaying their loan on higher & higher demands. When I said all this, GE people said it is in the agreement that there will be a penalty. All the rules are for their safety but none for the client that forces the lender to at least inform clients of these things & ask him his choice.
I am severely distressed. Please HELP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
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