My husband purchased a new Ford F-150 in 1997 from our local dealership. He made the mistake of financing the truck through Arcadia Financial and 6 LONG years later we officially own the truck. (Although we haven't actually received the title, as of yet.)
During those 6 LONG years we did miss a couple of payments, but we always contacted Arcadia Financial and made arrangements to have an extension. DON'T ever extended payments with Arcadia!!! They will allow you to extend the principal of the payments, but they don't do anything about the interest for that month you didn't pay. And if you are in a loan as our's was, it is an Interest Bearing Loan. (We didn't know this when we signed the paperwork at the Dealership.) The interest that was not paid during those months compiled into a $2800.00 bill at the end of our loan agreement.
Although according to Arcadia's records, we were paying the loan ON-TIME monthly directly out of our checking account, we were not paying the interest from 4 years back. During those 4 years, Arcadia, just kept adding penalties onto the original $250.00 interest until it climaxed at $2800.00 at the end of our loan agreement.
Arcadia never contacted my husband or myself notifying us of the charges that were occuring and their reasons for not notifying us was... Because it was in our contract and we should have read the contract. (By the way, who can find their contract after 6 LONG years???)
Finally we were offered a settlement of $2000.00. After getting the $2000.00 (It took us 2 weeks to borrow the lump sum money) we again contacted Arcadia and asked where we should send the payment. We were told that the settlement for $2000.00 was no longer valid and we would have to pay $2500.00.
I was told that the $2000.00 had not "really" been approved by anyone with the authority to make those decisions. We did pay the $2500.00 just to get the truck paid for and to no longer have to be required to deal with Arcadia Financial.
Needless to say, I will never deal with Arcadia Financial again, and I have warned all my family and friends to also not have any dealings with them. This company uses crooked business practices to rip-off their customers that already pay outrageous interest rates.
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