We have been a business customer since 1997 and although we are certainly not one of their larger customers we still have spent over $150, 000 in the last two years. We shop at Sam's and Wal-Mart because of the lower cost to us.

However, a situation has taken place that has put our company in jeopardy.

Our credit line is $25, 000 and for the past 12 years we have paid by receipt rather than by statement. This has always been beneficial to us since we pay all of our bills at the end of each week rather than a 30 or 45 day basis. We have always felt that Sam's as a company would benefit from this payment schedule because they would get their money that much sooner.

Approximately a year ago we noticed that the balance on the statement was always rather high and that there was always a service charge, we contacted GE Money office and they sent out several years of statements for us to reconcile with our records. What we found is that although we had paid all invoices we hadn't paid for annual card fees. We subsequently sent payment for said fees.

The first of March one of our employees was in a Wal-Mart store to purchase items for one of our residential homes (we employ developmentally disabled adults and have 8 residential homes for some of them) and was told that we have exceeded our credit limit. Our credit limit is $25, 000 and we just recently sent payments totaling $8, 188.77. I called their office and was told that yes they had received payment however since we send payments more than once a month our payments are held for 6 to 7 days. they have never had a problem with any of our payments for all these many years and we always thought that they as a company would benefit from such prompt payments and we had been completely unaware of the hold. The other problem is that service charges have been accumulating upon service charges since we pay all our invoices when incurred.

We are a company that relies on products from Sam's and Wal-Mart for much of our daily business. Apart from the residential homes and manufacturing facilities we have a full service snack bar at the company and furnish product for 300 employees as well as full service restaurants at a governmental facility and a state hospital.

We have been penalized for being a good customer. We don't understand their attitude, if we as a business gave the same lack of customer service we would be out of business in a heart beat.