Complaint Review: Guaranteed Consumer Funding

After responding to a very misleading advertisement on the radio, I ordered a computer (Way over priced by comparison with a comparable product and other retail companies) thru Guaranteed Consumer Funding in January. I was asked to provide copies of my pay stubs, a copy of my actual driver license, a cancelled copy of my personal checking account and current gas bill among other verifying documentation. Aside from these requirements, I was also required to make an up-front payment of $99.00; I was also told that after 5 payments at $29.99 per week (that's $119.96 per month) the computer would be sent me. After the 5 payments, I called Guaranteed Consumer Funding to see when my new computer would be delivered.

After a long, long wait on hold, I was told that my computer was being built specially for me (give me a break). I have made 25 weekly payments since and was told that my delivery date would be the week of June 9 through 17, and no computer. The weeks of June 9 through 17 came and went and still no computer. When I call to check the status of my delivery date I get nothing but a runaround and no computer.

The wait time when I call the so called customer service is typically between 45 to 50 minutes. I don't dare leave a message; since I am confident I will not be getting a call back.

This company is a fraud and geared only in retrieving their payment, which they are very good at; nothing else. They prey on consumers with weak or no credit.

Don't even attempt logging into their shell website, all one will get is advertisement and non congenial information, together with no log in capability. Unfortunately, their customer service staff is illiterate and in my experience, only women, and I'm sure underpaid and easy to teach to answer questions with lies such as Dell is having delivery problems and make promises they don't even know how to keep.

I called this company so as to CANCEL my order all together, but as I suspected, I was on hold for 52+ minutes with various teases leading one to think that someone was answering, then the artificial voice recording and back to that cheesy hold music.

Here is where it gets better for this company. I finally spoke with a customer services representative. I explained to her that I wanted to cancel my Loaded Payment Program, and that I wanted a full refund of what I have paid to this company thus far for something that I didn't receive.

She graciously put me on hold, when she returned she told me that my payment plan had been cancelled and that they could NOT refund layaway plans. I asked her to connect me with a manager and she could only take my number and said that someone would be calling me.

A layaway plan means that product is being held at the store until full payment is received. This is not the case with this company. I was told that Dell was building my computer especially for me, and that it would be delivered on a specific time frame. I took time from my work days to ensure a seamless delivery of the ghost computer. The company failed in their agreement I am now out $700.00 and I WANT MY MONEY BACK IN FULL.

Hector
Monterey, California
U.S.A.