Consumer complaint received 2022-11-22
Company: BMO HARRIS BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CO
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Lease
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
BMO Harris Bank engages in deceptive trade practices. In our case, it was not our choice to go with BMO. Our company & our lease contracts were transferred to BMO through their buyout of another company whom we were already engaged in business. 
BMO acquired XXXX XXXX in XXXX. XXXX XXXX is the company we leased our equipment through. In XXXX, our company had XXXX active leases with XXXX XXXX which included, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX with an estimated value of roughly, {$970000.00}, and since we are a trucking company, we can not do our business without our trucks & trailers. Our only option was to continue business with BMO. With that being said, our business was now going to be through BMO and we have learned the hard way, that entering into a contract with BMO is nothing short of a no-win situation for everyone but BMO. 
Their contract is a, " take it or leave it '' agreement, and is the epitome of what qualifies as a Contract of Adhesion. An adhesion contract or contract of adhesion exists if, " the Parties are of such disproportionate bargaining power that the party of weaker bargaining power could not have negotiated for variations in the terms of the Adhesion Contract ''. Adhesion contracts are generally in the form of standardized contracts that are entirely prepared and offered by the party of superior bargaining strength to consumers of goods and services. 
BMO revised The Master Vehicle Lease Agreement after acquiring XXXX. XXXX  agreement allows them to take your payment and apply it as follows ; " first late charges, then additional rents, and then any other fees or amounts payable hereunder ''. Then they apply your payments to the monthly rentals. BMOs revised agreement says, " all payments received by us with respect to a lease may be applied by us, in our sole and absolute discretion, to late charges, to additional rent and any other fees or other amounts payable hereunder, and to the monthly rentals, in any order and manner selected by us ''. 
This is in the fine print of their contract, and if you can get past all the wordiness in BMOs agreement, you see that EVERYTHlNG in the agreement gives BMO full authority to do business however they wish and holds them accountable for nothing, and you as the consumer, are liable for everything no matter what deceptive practices BM0 dishes out. 
Under the Doctrine Of Unconscionability, it states ; If a contract is unfair or oppressive to one party in a way that suggests abuses during its formation, a court may find it unconscionable and refuse to enforce it. A contract is most likely to be found unconscionable if both unfair bargaining and unfair substantive terms are shown.

The contract isn't the only problem. What is an even bigger issue is the deception they use in their billing process to get away with stealing your money. Then when you figure out that that is what they are doing, they talk you in circles like you're an XXXX. 
The definition of consumer fraud is, " the unfair or deceptive business practices that cause consumers to lose money or be misled ''. Consumer fraud is commonly defined as deceptive business practices that cause consumers to suffer financial or other losses. The victims believe they are participating in a legal and valid business transaction when they are actually being defrauded. Fraud against consumers is often related to false promises or inaccurate claims made to consumers, as well as practices that directly cheat consumers out of their money. 
Their invoices tell you to include your " Account Schedule number '' to ensure your payment is applied correctly. It also states that " invoice is for current items due ''. So when you write a check to pay a bill, you expect that when the company receives it, that bill will be paid. Especially if the company does not send you any information to the contrary, ever. We sent our payments in with the invoice coupon from the bill and wrote the account # s on the check.

Since BMO has taken over, XXXX XXXX has experienced issues such as ; being charged erroneous tax amounts, fluctuations of erroneous tax amounts, fluctuations in payment amounts, misapplication of payments, discrepancies with our ACH payment receipts, erroneous late charges, incorrect account balances, the removal of access to our online accounts, overpayment on leases by tens of thousands of dollars, doubled billing, splitting up payments between c ] ur accounts without telling us. 
BMO has taken it upon themselves to create a " LOAN '' for us without a verbal consultation with XXXX XXXX  beforehand, and it is under question that the documents they have for that loan, may or may not have been manipulated without our written consent. They sent a letter stating we applied for the restructure of our leases, but they can not give us any paperwork showing that we did it. BMO has taken our payment that were on time and put it in their system, turned around 3 days later and reversed it, then put the next month payment that also included the previous payment into their system at the later date and charged us late fees. Incidentally the first {$7000.00} payment has just disappeared. We had a lease that we were overcharged & overpaid for and that we have paid off, and should have the titles & trailers in our possession, but instead they were bought out from underneath of us by a third party from BMO. We have evidence that suggests that BMO is holding payments past due dates which results in late charges. 
This is not a complete list of the issues we have and are currently having with BMO. 
In XXXX when XXXX XXXX first discovered tax discrepancies on our billing history, we contacted BM0 with the information. They checked into it, acknowledged that we we re correct and they refunded some of the tax monies that we were incorrectly charged. We have since went through all of our lease accounts with BM0 and have found a plethora of discrepancies and erroneous charges and it is still an ongoing battle with BMO to get these issues resolved. We have consulted with their legal counsel, we have sent records and numbers and evidence & explanations to BMO. We have conversed with their accounting people, upper management, account managers. We still do not have resolution. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, we were contacted by a representative of BMO, XXXX. He stated " he was picking up all the equipment ''. We have been making payments on time and even early. BMO is not out any monies. We believe this business practice is unacceptable.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation