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CareCredit Complaint - Stay Away From This Company
Complaint
There are a number of problems with CareCredit, (CC), none of which parent company, GE, apparently cares to change or address, so consumers beware.
The premise of this card is based on whatever CC program your medical/dental/veterinary provider has chosen to participate in. For example, one doctor's office may provide patients a CC plan to charge balances of $300 or more at 0% interest for 18 months. Another office may offer it patients a CC plan of 0% interest for 6 months on charges of $1,500 or more. At the end of those 0% interest periods, your rate on outstanding balances reverts to whatever astronomical percentage CareCredit has put in place. But the material point is that the CareCredit plan available to patients will differ from one provider to another. This may sound very attractive if you know you will be able to pay the balances in full by the end of the 0& interest periods---it certainly did to me---but it is also tied to the first issue with CareCredit: How the payments are applied.
If you have multiple charges from multiple providers, all with different plans, you better be keeping track of your payments because CC may not be applying them as you would like. Another complaint on this site alluded to repeatedly contacting the company regarding the reallocation of payments: That is precisely what you will have to do if you want your payment applied to, for instance, the $1,500 balance coming due in 6 months as opposed to the $300 balance coming due in 18 months.
This in itself is a total pain, but making it even more enjoyable is the fact that you get to deal with the unbelievably rude and obnoxious customer service (for want of a better term) staff. These people must have received special instruction on how to enrage their customers in as short a time span as possible. I've never encountered anything like it before: No apologies for any confusion, no explanations for anything outside of scripted responses---which they will repeat ad nauseam until you find yourself wanting to scream. There is quite obviously no incentive program in place for CC reps to even ponder customer satisfaction or the lack thereof. And before I go any further, let me just offer the fact that I AM in customer service so I feel totally justified in my criticisms.
Now let's get to the available credit portion of my review. If you set up an electronic payment for any amount of $500 or more, (I'm not certain, but this may also apply to large payments by check), you will see your bank account debited and the payment will be reflected as having been received by CareCredit, but YOUR AVAILABLE BALANCE WILL NOT INCREASE BY THE AMOUNT OF THAT PAYMENT FOR 10 BUSINESS DAYS. So, using my balance figure examples above, if I pay the entire $1,800 balance by electronic transfer, my available credit will still be minus that $1,800 for the next 10 business days---despite the fact that CareCredit has acknowledged receipt of payment by actually posting the payment to my account. So if you are using CareCredit for ongoing medical care, this becomes a major problem: You think you are paying balances owed in a timely fashion so funds will be available for your followup visit to the doctor but---Surprise!--- you find that it just isn't the case, and you're left digging out your VISA card.
I always thought I was a fairly smart consumer: This experience definitely proved me wrong on that score! Bottom line--if something sounds too good to be true, it is. Walk away...very quickly. I've closed my account with CareCredit and hopefully, I'm the wiser for the experience.
The premise of this card is based on whatever CC program your medical/dental/veterinary provider has chosen to participate in. For example, one doctor's office may provide patients a CC plan to charge balances of $300 or more at 0% interest for 18 months. Another office may offer it patients a CC plan of 0% interest for 6 months on charges of $1,500 or more. At the end of those 0% interest periods, your rate on outstanding balances reverts to whatever astronomical percentage CareCredit has put in place. But the material point is that the CareCredit plan available to patients will differ from one provider to another. This may sound very attractive if you know you will be able to pay the balances in full by the end of the 0& interest periods---it certainly did to me---but it is also tied to the first issue with CareCredit: How the payments are applied.
If you have multiple charges from multiple providers, all with different plans, you better be keeping track of your payments because CC may not be applying them as you would like. Another complaint on this site alluded to repeatedly contacting the company regarding the reallocation of payments: That is precisely what you will have to do if you want your payment applied to, for instance, the $1,500 balance coming due in 6 months as opposed to the $300 balance coming due in 18 months.
This in itself is a total pain, but making it even more enjoyable is the fact that you get to deal with the unbelievably rude and obnoxious customer service (for want of a better term) staff. These people must have received special instruction on how to enrage their customers in as short a time span as possible. I've never encountered anything like it before: No apologies for any confusion, no explanations for anything outside of scripted responses---which they will repeat ad nauseam until you find yourself wanting to scream. There is quite obviously no incentive program in place for CC reps to even ponder customer satisfaction or the lack thereof. And before I go any further, let me just offer the fact that I AM in customer service so I feel totally justified in my criticisms.
Now let's get to the available credit portion of my review. If you set up an electronic payment for any amount of $500 or more, (I'm not certain, but this may also apply to large payments by check), you will see your bank account debited and the payment will be reflected as having been received by CareCredit, but YOUR AVAILABLE BALANCE WILL NOT INCREASE BY THE AMOUNT OF THAT PAYMENT FOR 10 BUSINESS DAYS. So, using my balance figure examples above, if I pay the entire $1,800 balance by electronic transfer, my available credit will still be minus that $1,800 for the next 10 business days---despite the fact that CareCredit has acknowledged receipt of payment by actually posting the payment to my account. So if you are using CareCredit for ongoing medical care, this becomes a major problem: You think you are paying balances owed in a timely fashion so funds will be available for your followup visit to the doctor but---Surprise!--- you find that it just isn't the case, and you're left digging out your VISA card.
I always thought I was a fairly smart consumer: This experience definitely proved me wrong on that score! Bottom line--if something sounds too good to be true, it is. Walk away...very quickly. I've closed my account with CareCredit and hopefully, I'm the wiser for the experience.
Comments:
Posted by goduke on 2010-06-08:
We here a lot about these guys, and the bad definitely outweights the good by far (not sure we've heard any good). Hopefully you can get out from under them soon and bid them a fond (or not so fond) adieu.
Posted by Starlord on 2010-06-09:
We found that GE Money Bank is the power behind Care Credit, as well as WalMart card, and probably many others. I do have to say our WalMArt account is going very well, but we watch it intensely, having been through Care Credit's wringer. We obtained a signature loan from our credit union to pay off Care Credit, at an interest rate we could live with. Care Credit got it's final dig in by quting a pay-off to the manager of our CU branch, then after receiving the funds, charging us another amount, after it was all done, was $90 more than was previously quoted. Our veteranarian no longer wroks with Care Credit, and I understand many vets have dropped it.
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