The company admitted they make no attempt to return overpayments on 7/17/03 Santa Ana, CA Santa Ana...
My husband, who is in the military and currently serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, had used the finance company, WFS Financial to finance his truck. I traded the vehicle in and the truck was paid off in full by the dealership, which WFS aknowleged. There were two over-payments made to WFS, one before the vehicle was paid off and one after the account was closed.
The company said they mailed the first overpayment to my huband's deployment address in Iraq, but would cancel that check and send another after 30 days if I called to let them know it was not received. I called after 30 days and they said they have cancelled the first check and sent a new one. (We'll see if it ever gets to me.) WFS first claimed they would hold any overpayments to a closed account for 30 days to ensure the monies cleared, even if they were wired to them in the form of cash from Uncle Sam. When that didn't disuade me from asking for my money back, WFS claimed they have no record of receipt on the second overpayment as per a gentleman who said his name was Rigo.
This was repeated by another customer service representative named Abir and a supervisor named Kelvin the next day. The payments were set up as allotments throught my husband's military pay so they come directly from Defence Finance & Accounting Services in Indianapolis via electronic transfer into WFS's bank account. DFAS has confirmed the money was sent to WFS and that it has not been returned to DFAS as yet. I called a third time and spoke with Latica, an accounts manager, who said if there was any money sent to an account that was closed, WFS would hold the funds in a "reject" file, but WFS would not return the funds unless the consumer requested they be returned and then only if the consumer could prove the funds had been deposited into WFS's account.
The proof they request for this case and for this type of electronic tranfer amounts to a report that can only come from DFAS in Indianapolis. They would not accept my husband's military pay statement (LES) which shows the allotment going out as proof even with the trace number from DFAS. Latica said the money COULD be traced this way, but it would take a long time and they really needed the report from Indianapolis which would provide the same information as they already had plus a whole bunch of other financial information they have no need to know. Latica said they would not attempt to trace the funds until they received the report from DFAS.
Some of the customer service representatives that I spoke with, and there were others, did try to be helpful and some did not. All of them had to put me on hold several times and for several minutes each time.in one case, with Abir, I was told I had already spoken with a supervisor (which Kelvin later aknowleged was false) and that she could not answer any more of my questions and to call back. She first said there were several supervisors availiable to speak with customers and then said there was only one and I could not speak with them and I must call back later. She could not give me a better time to call beack when there might be a supervisor to talk to either, and again emphasised that I must call back later. When I called back the next day and spoke with Diana I asked her to promis not to put me on hold and she laughed and she didn't until she transferred me to Kelvin. Both she and Kelvin were pleasant, even though they could not help me.
If you are already doing business with this company, please do what you can to complete whatever financial obligations you have with them just to be done with them. If you are considerring doing business with WFS, my experience has been less than satisfactory and I know now that they have an unsatisfactory reputation with the California BBB as well.in my opinion, you would be better off considering other options.
Kris
copperas cove, Texas
U.S.A.
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