I purchased a 1999 Nisian Altima in 9/99 from a dealership who used Household Auto Finance as their lender. I was quoted an interest rate of 12% due to me not having a perfect credit score.
Over the course of the last 4 years I have gotten behind a few times but have always managed to get the payments caught back up. My loan was scheduled to be paid off 10/05 so I contacted Household Auto Finance in 12/03 to get a payoff as we had begun looking for a house and wanted to reduce as much debt as possible, especially the higher interest rates. Payoff on this vehicle is $9000. I requested a payment history as this made little sence to me that so much could still be owed.
It took two months and numberous phone calls to finally get the payment history. I found out that I was paying 17.95% and that the vehicle would not be paid off until 5/06!
I called Household Auto Finance and spoke to a representative who told me to fax a letter to the workout department and make an offer to settle the loan and that they would contact me and we would be able to negotiate a deal.
A month passed without a response from the workout department so today I called and after being transferred 5 times I spoke with a representative who informed me that I must not know who to read if I signed a contract that I didn't know what was on it and that they did not negotiated. I tried to be very nice and not loose my cool. I said that I did not want to let the car go back and ruin my credit but that I could not pay $9000 on a car that I no longer needed and that I would be willing to come to some type of payoff agreement.
She transferred me to someone else who immediantly began screaming at me for wanted to default on a legal binding agreement. I asked for a supervisor and had to wait 7 hours before speaking to a supervisor.
The supervisor who spoke with me gave me a crash course in Finance 101 "as I needed to be educated on how business works" and offered to take off $150 from the loan if I paid it off today. I told him that the differene in the interest I was quoted and what I was paying was worth thousands of dollars and that that was not a fair offer.
He offered for me to sell the vehicle and to refinance the difference in what was owed and what it sold for at 7.9%. I explained that I live in an apartment and could not have a non-operated vehicle in the lot so could I just pay $3000 and have the rest financed at a lower rate so I could sell the vehicle in a non hasty manner and park it at a family members house. He said that I would have to pay $4000. I agreed to the $4000 then he said that because making payments was not a hardship on me that he would take $5000 and finance the other $4000 at 7.9%. Had I agreed to that he would have kept going up to the $9000.
I really am an honest person and would like to think that most people are honest also. However, Household Auto Finance has proved that they are not customer oriented and are not honest. I was even told that I had to pay off my entire loan to cover the expense of all the others that defaulted on their loan. I have decided to let the car go back and provide as much information to the credit bureau as possible to explain why this is against me.
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