Citifinancial Auto And Balboa Insurance
Insurance Charged Despite Coverage, $1200 Credited After Dispute

Who wants this case?

My wife bought a new car in Virginia and it was financed by Citifinancial Auto. About 2 months later (October 05) we moved to Florida. Our insurance company in Virginia would not cover our car in Florida, so we switched insurance to one in Florida. We got all of our cars registered, insured, etc., and sent paperwork to Citifinancial.

Soon after, we started receiving phone calls for late payments. After a little investigating, we found out that they had added their in-house insurance to our loan. We sent paperwork again. We continued getting daily harassing phone calls about late payments. We disputed the fact, since we had and had never been without insurance.

Our insurance company in Florida sent the papers 4 times over a period of 10 months with no results. We were still getting calls and threats to repossess our car. Now the account is over 30 days past due, so it gets sent to Citifinancial's 30-day past due department. I got a call at 8:30 am one morning, and this so-called customer service rep said, "I need to know if you're going to make a payment." I again started the process of explaining that we were being billed for insurance when we had had insurance for the last 10 months. She told me this happens all the time and she could take care of it, so we gave her our insurance company's number.

The next day I called this representative, and she confirmed all of our information and that we in fact had been insured and falsely charged. She ended our conversation with "do you plan on getting your account up to date today?" I literally started laughing and said you guys owe us over 1200 dollars, so when do I get my money? She said that's not her department and I needed to speak with billing to see about a credit to my account. (Mind you, we sent money we didn't have and cut ourselves short on several occasions to keep them from calling.)

I told her that I would not make another payment until this matter was straightened out. She sharply said, "Sir, what is your current address?" and then asked what color my car was, insinuating they were going to come get it. I then asked for their dispute department and got her boss, who was no better, so I went through my story again only to find out it was the wrong person. Finally I searched the internet, found the dispute department number, and voila, problem solved. They credited my account 1200 dollars, removed all late fees, and apologized for the behavior of their staff.

Please contact me if you have had similar experiences with them, as I plan on suing them. Listed below are just some of the problems we encountered during this:

Reported us to the credit bureaus

Threatening and harassing phone calls

Said the problem was obvious, that we just don't listen

Harassed our 14-year-old daughter

Called day or night after we asked them not to (my wife is a nurse and sleeps during the day, and they know this)

Would not allow us to access our account online because there was a past due balance

When we called customer service, we were always forwarded to collections

When asking for a supervisor, we always seemed to lose our connection, 7 times in one night

No one would help us or give information on our account

We honestly felt strong-armed and helpless.

Thanks for your time and trust me, this is the short version.

Oh, and P.S., complaints have been filed with the FTC and the attorney general's office.

Company: Citifinancial Auto And Balboa Insurance
Country: USA
State: South Carolina

  <     >