In February, through our bankruptcy lawyer, a payoff figure was obtained from Kia. The final quote of $716.86 was provided verbally to our attorney, who relayed the amount to me and my husband. Kia claimed they do not issue written figures.
A check for the complete amount was issued with "Paid in Full" clearly marked in two locations on the front of the check as well as on the endorsement line, per the UCC codes.
Kia deposited the check, and it cleared our bank on 2/27/06. For the next three months, our attorney kept weekly contact with Kia trying to locate our title, but Kia never responded to her calls.
On 5/08/06, Kia Financial called me at home to tell me the payment was past due. I explained that the car had been paid off and that we had been waiting for the title from them.
A very rude man stated that he did not care if the word payoff was written on the check; there was still $2000 owed on the car. I told him that the amount was given to our attorney and that was the amount paid. He proceeded to tell me that if I did not pay the monthly payment, they would repossess the car. I told him that if he touched my car, I would sue him.
I called our bankruptcy lawyer, who proceeded to contact Kia and their lawyer. Their lawyer never returned our lawyer's calls. This went on until the evening of 5/11/06.
On 5/12/06, I left to take my two girls to school and our car was gone. In order to retrieve the car, we had to pay a total of $2435.40. Having just finished the bankruptcy, we did not have that kind of money, so my husband had to take a loan through his retirement fund. We now have to repay it with interest. We had to obtain a rental car until we could get our car back, which took until 5/15.
My husband and I are so upset that we had to pay a total of $716.86 plus an additional $2435.40. Our car was scheduled to be paid off by 8/06 had we kept the regular payments of $243 a month instead of paying it off in February. Kia claimed the balance was $2716.86 after cashing our check. How could our balance have been that when we were scheduled to have only six more payments at $243 each? That does not take into account the 14% interest rate, part of which they had to deduct for the earlier payoff.
Our lawyer is currently looking into legal process, but any information you can provide that would help us would be greatly appreciated.
My sincerest thanks to you all.
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