Consumer complaint received 2023-09-20
Company: Westlake Services, LLC
State: CA
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan
Sub-product: Title loan
Issue: Charged fees or interest you didn't expect

Complaint:
I borrowed {$5000.00} for a title loan in XX/XX/ from Wilshire Consumer Credit. In general, I have been paying about {$200.00} for month with usually with about {$50.00} principal and {$150.00} interest. I wasn't able to pay for XXXX on time and called Wilshire and discussed if I can pay those in XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, we agreed that if I just pay {$50.00} then, I can pay the rest ( {$150.00} ) any time until the maturity time in XX/XX/XXXX. After about a couple of weeks, XX/XX/XXXX, I called and told them that I was ready with the remaining {$150.00}. When the customer service asked me additional {$20.00} of late fee, another {$15.00} from last year, XXXX, that I was not aware at all, I told him that it was not part of our agreement to pay late fee and that the permission was granted to me to pay it in XXXX and I am paying it earlier. But he insisted that I had to pay late fee and said he could not provide me the person who made the deal with me. I then told him to charge me the base charge {$150.00} at that time and I will address the late fee at a different time by speaking with the person who made the deal with me. But he splitted my {$150.00} into {$130.00} of the base pay and {$20.00} of late fee without my consent, making me short of {$20.00} from my base pay. I found out about this in XXXX after I paid my monthly {$200.00}, I still received an email requiring me immediate attention and saw {$20.00} and the {$15.00} from last year. 
So, I told them that I am not convinced about these two payments of late fee and {$15.00} from last XXXX because I did not agree to late fee charge and did not see any missed payment except from last XXXX, where my entire {$200.00} payment was entered as interest only. However, I will pay both now and address it legally at a later time and so I paid the {$20.00} 'late ' fee and the {$15.00} 'non sufficient fee ' from last year on XX/XX/XXXX and have received an email confirmation saying thank you for scheduling your payment. 
But today, 5 days later, I received an email letting me know that I have payment due. When I called Wilshire and confronted them that I have an email confirmation as proof that I paid, they said, it didn't go through because you had insufficient funds. I tried to explain to them that I can proof that by presenting my bank statement that I did not have insufficient funds. But they argued with me for a long time stating that it would not have said, insufficient funds if I had sufficient funds. They eventually changed the insufficient funds argument into I put debit card number instead of account number and so it is considered insufficient funds and so I was required to pay additional late fee of {$20.00}, unpaid non sufficient fee of {$30.00} and and unpaid other fees of {$75.00} which he told me is administrative fee, making it {$120.00} than the {$35.00} ( XXXX ) I was going to pay with still a question mark. 
First of all, I have paid the full {$120.00} today even if it did not make sense to me. I can not dispute whether I used debit card number instead of account number because I don't see it Infront me now but I have done online business for many years and no one ever told me I made that mistake. Second of all, I used my bank information that was already saved with Wilshire for monthly automatic payment. Thirdly, if it didn't go through, I would have expected a notification sooner than after five days. Finally, even today, while I was trying to pay to someone who said is a supervisor, he repeatedly told me that it didn't go through and I repeatedly told him that there was nothing else to tell him but he eventually said, " hold on, I'm going to use a different system '' and he eventually told me it went through. When I said, " see, the issue could have been your system like this when you guys were blaming it on me for why the {$35.00} payment was not successful the first time either '', he just brushed it off. 
Overall, the way I felt about this is that Wilshire wanted to retaliate by making me make even more payments because in my previous conversation, I mentioned to them that I was going to pay the {$35.00} but still would seek legal counsel. 
Although I am still in the process of finding a legal counsel, I am also addressing it with this office so that this office can look closely into this business as this seem way too shady business practice.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation