These people are liars, cheats and thieves. My complaint is with Mercantile Bank also known as Carolina First Bank of SC and Progressive Insurance Company. Let me start by saying I have/had an auto loan with this bank and have had it for more than 4 years. We fell behind by accident when a coupon book ran out of coupons after 36 months and we called them to get a new one and they never sent it. We did not realize we fell behind as a direct result of them not sending us the payment book as advised to do. We were behind as they never called or sent any type of notification whatsoever. What they did do is to wait until three months and then order a repossession without ever telling us until the man came for the car. Once we knew about it we immediately paid them what they wanted to bring it current no questions asked. They did argue with me for hours as they only wanted the car, NOT the money. I believe it was their intent all along to get this 40 MPG Honda car to sell off and close out the loan. I paid ALL charges in person at a branch bringing the account 100% up to date within 12 hours of notification. The next event came 18 months later when my wife was hit from behind while she was stopped; she was hit by a large truck going 45 mph which did severe damage to the car and to my wife. This bank went behind my back and contacted my insurance company and made a deal to screw us out of thousands of dollars. I was not aware of this secret deal until I was asked where the car was. They thought it was towed to a lot where they could get at it to finalize this secret deal behind my back they made to screw us out of the car and the money we had coming. They then called me and said we are paying off your loan, whether you like it or not and we will send you $1,900 that is left over. The problem is I wanted to fix the car which is my legal right to do. They lied and said you cannot fix this car as it belongs to us, not you and we will sue you if you try. The Progressive Insurance Company also lied and said you will not get a dime to repair this car if you do not let us total it out and pay you next to nothing for the privilege. I think both of these dishonest companies would have gotten away with this dishonest act if I had not hired a lawyer and the car was not towed to my house where there was no access to them to pull off this stunt. I rejected the offer, now with some leverage and went after the man's, who hit my wife, insurance company and dealt directly with them instead of my insurance company. I did get $6,000 instead of the $1,900 that Progressive was going to give us. A huge difference of course. Progressive was clearly going to cheat us, as was my bank. I am told this is standard operating procedure with these two dishonest companies. I also received a letter from the bank from a man named Nick Murphy in collections telling me in big bold capital letters what I had to do or else. I called him immediately and complained and of course he said, its only a suggestion, thats all. We finally agreed to let the car be totaled only to have the bank cheat us out of $500.00 in additional fees. The pay off was approx. $4,700.00 Total as it was reported to us directly from the bank. The insurance company paid the bank approx $5,200.00 allowing for extra days and we had a payment post the day after the pay off was given of $250.00 dollars. Now I do not have a PhD in math but you can clearly see whats going on here. The bank has seen an opportunity to screw us out of hundreds of dollars by number one, posting the check almost two weeks after it was received. Number two, adding all kinds of additional phony fees after a legal pay off was issued. They are charging us fees that they have made up going back three years. When I called to complain I was told TOUGH SHIT" by Nick Murphy. I then called the so - called supervisor of collections of this bad bank to be told Go away and stop bothering us. This idiot's name was Shaun Hilly, he sounded 17 and was just as stupid and arrogant as a 17 year old kid. Why was I dealing with collections in the first place you might ask as we were not late, the car was up to date and had been for 18 months. I will tell you why, it was to add on as many additional fees as humanly possible. Liars, cheats and thieves! Do not do business with this bank or insurance company, please learn from my lesson and expense, these are real bad companies, stealing your hard earned money because they can. The bank refuses to return phone calls or emails. Update: we received a copy of a letter from the insurance company to the Department of Motor Vechiles telling the state that we had no insurance at the time of the accident, a 100% lie. We called them and they tried to say they knew nothing about the letter but did retract it before we lost our tags and license. Bad companies for sure!
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