I have had an auto loan with GreatBank for the past five years.
The last payment for my loan was November. I had talked to a gentleman by the name of Jason at that time regarding the payment. He informed me my loan had reached its term and that there was an outstanding balance due of over $800. I asked him if it would be possible to break that up into two or more payments seeing that I could not afford to come up with this amount of money. He informed me that until the loan is considered delinquent, that there was nothing we could do. After it was considered overdue, however, he said there would be some possibilities to work out a payment plan and directed me to wait until mid-December to make arrangements.
Per his advice, I waited until the week of December 15th when I received a call from Joan regarding the amount due. I informed her of my previous conversations with Jason and asked her what kind of payment arrangement could be made. She said there were no payment arrangements and the balance must be paid by the first of the year or else paperwork would be filed for repossession of the vehicle. I told her I did not have the money, but wanted to pay what I owe if it was at all possible to come to some sort of agreement. I was told there was no agreement possible.
Over the past two weeks, my parents and I have been dealing with Luz C/Lucy [Collections Mgr] and Joan in attempts to come to an agreement to settle this matter. My father informed them that the vehicle was in poor shape and was not worth the remaining balance on the loan. Luz C/Lucy wanted to arrange to appraise the vehicle for a possible settlement. I was to bring the vehicle to the bank or to my parent's home, causing me to miss a day of work, or pay $75 to have someone come to my work, in order for this to be arranged. When my response was that it seemed unfair I was to either take an unpaid day off work or pay a fee for this, Luz C/Lucy retracted the offer, refusing to settle this any other method besides me paying the balance.
My father called in [possibly talking to Joan, I am not sure] and asked what exactly the outstanding balance was from. He was informed that it was the total of several deferred payments. My understanding was that the deferred payments had been paid. I called and talked to Cynthia at this point after leaving several messages for Joan with no response, and questioned what exactly my balance was from. Cynthia, who was extremely helpful and pleasant to work with, explained that the balance was late fees, not the deferred payments. To my recollection, the deferred payments were added to the end of the loan pushing the expiration to November instead of May, which was the original termination date.
My mother stopped by the bank to get a printout of the loan history for me so we could verify the balance is currently due. She was told to pay $25. I called and was told to sign up on greatbank.com and I would be able to get a complete history printout for free. First, the website was not accepting my account number, then I was informed I would have to wait for my temporary password to be sent in the mail. I finally received my temp password only to have it not work. I talked to Steve Schwitzer, who is also very helpful and delightful to work with, and he reset a temporary password for me. When I finally logged into my account, I pulled up my account history, only to get very little information. I saw information from 7/22/02, and 5/25/03 through 11/14/03 only. I called Steve back and after some research, he discovered that I was lucky to receive anything more than a few months past.
Now, my father is concerned that there is over $800 in late fees on the loan, which has never been clearly explained to us. I am displeased that not only did my father and I get conflicting information, but nearly every person [with the exception of Cynthia and Steve] we have dealt with has been rude and extremely unpleasant. I understand it is the job of a collections officer to be disconnected as it is not a highly pleasant job, I am sure. However, I have wanted to do nothing other than settle this matter as quickly as possible and it seems that no one there was willing to work with me and my parents.
As of this moment, unless I want to pay $25 to view my own account history, I am forced to somehow pay a balance that I am unsure as to what it is an accumulation of, or face the repercussions of having a car that rarely works repossessed and scarring my credit report for six or more years. I have never felt more like a bother than like a client by any other organization in my entire life. For the sake of your other clients, I hope this is an isolated incident. No one should be treated as me and my parents have been after five years of patronage.
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