Consumer complaint received 2023-03-24
Company: WHEELS FINANCIAL GROUP, LLC.
State: CA
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Title loan
Issue: Vehicle was repossessed or sold the vehicle

Complaint:
I am would like to file a formal complaint against XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX dba LoanMart located at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, CA XXXX My account number is XXXX I am sitting and writing this in tears because this company sucked all life out of me since XX/XX/XXXX and today they repossessed my car again because I simply can not make these payments any more. 

Out of desperation I took out a loan with LoanMart in XX/XX/XXXX for the amount of {$8800.00} to which they have added a prepaid finance charge or so-called admin fee of {$950.00}. They gave me this loan at the interest rate of 105.72 %. Each payment was to be {$780.00} My plan was to pay it off quickly, but due to personal circumstances this did not happen no matter how hard I tried and with increasing loan amount it became harder and harder to pay it off. 

Below are my complaints against LoanMart ( and these are the main complaints, I could talk about their rude and dismissive customer service for hours. For the amount of money we pay them, they should at least treat us with respect and without threats! ) : First of all, on XX/XX/XXXX a new California law went into effect that now caps the maximum interest rate on loans issued by certified finance lenders. LoanMart is such a lender. 

That law ( California Financial Code 22304.5 ) went into effect on XX/XX/XXXX - https : //leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml? lawCode=FIN & sectionNum=22304.5. 

Under that law, the maximum interest rate on loans from {$2500.00} to {$9900.00} is 36 %, plus the federal funds rate. This means that a maximum interest rate should be about 36.25 % to 38.5 %. There are related laws that invalidate loans that exceed those interest rates - https : //leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml? lawCode=FIN & sectionNum=22750. 

And there is a class action lawsuit against LoanMart that is going on at the moment for that same reason - that they ignored that new law ( California XXXX XXXX XXXX ) and continued issuing loans with high interests rates. The lawsuit is between XXXX XXXX XXXX Wheels Financial Group , LLC . There are tons of complaints about this just on this site. 

The Department of Financial Protection & Innovation also launched an investigation into evasion of Californias new interest rate caps by LoanMart and confirmed that LoanMart ( although working with a bank in Utah ) is not allowed to charge above 36 % as permitted by new California law. 

Do you think I was informed by Loanmart about this change in the law? No. They did not reach out to me in XX/XX/XXXX to recalculate the interest on my loan. I did not know about this until early XXXX last year, until I started actively doing my own research. 

I tried to call and talk to a customer service representative about lowering my interest rate last year in XXXX and they said they do not know anything about this new law and can not help me. 

Now, lets do some math here. 

In XXXX Ive made 12 payments totaling- {$9300.00} and at the end of the year I owed them as much - {$9300.00}. 

The new law was introduced in XX/XX/XXXX, my interest rate should have been no more than 36 %. Even if my interest rate was 36 % starting from XX/XX/XXXX, then I would only need to pay additional {$3300.00} in XXXX and {$13000.00} over the remaining 48 months. 

However, from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX ( for 3 years without knowing about the new law! ) I continued to pay 105.72 % and have paid LoanMart over {$21000.00} ( Ive made 27 payments as I was able to get deferment from them every 3 months or so as this loan was extremely expensive and I could not afford these payments ). 

In addition, they repossessed my car in XX/XX/XXXX and in XX/XX/XXXX because I was late on my payment ( a little over 30 days late ) and I had to pay over {$500.00} in additional fees each time to get my car back from the lot. I actually had to pay an additional {$75.00} to just get my car released last year! Can you believe this? Do you think money is falling to me from the sky? If it was, I would not be getting a title loan in the first place! 

My car was towed away again last night. 

Now that I have overpaid for the last 3 years, I do not owe LoanMart anything, and I own my car! I demand my car back and additional {$8700.00} back - this is the money that I overpaid and I also want get paid for the emotional distress you caused me- for these 3 times that youve made me so stressed over losing my car! 

2. I did receive 4 emails recently when ( I could not make payments any more ) offering to refinance this amount {$9700.00} at 51 %! 

51 % is illegal in California since XX/XX/XXXX according to the California Financial Code 22304.5. But they still are doing this! They are still offering loans at 51 %! When will this stop? Even with all these laws and restrictions in place, they continue to scam people out of money! 

In addition, which ( and please, look closely at what they are doing ) : {$9700.00} - this is NOT even my initial loan amount! This amount includes the administration fee of {$950.00}! So, not only they still believe I owe them the full loan amount, they are still adding that administrative fee on top of it and continue calculating interest on it! Since when do we pay interest on administrative fees? They pretend like this is my actual initial loan amount! 

3. They also broke the law by contacting people Ive mentioned on my initial title loan application as references in XX/XX/XXXX discussing my loan with them. All 4 references. I felt so embarrassed that people I left as references were bothered by this! This is also illegal in California. 

Just recently in XXXX they called my friend. I have a screenshot of their call that my friend shared with me. I assume again they called all 4 people that I left as references on my application! 

When I was applying for this loan, I was assured they will not call them that that was just a formality. 

4. They call twice and sometimes 3 times a day, which is also illegal in California. I have screenshots of their phone numbers. And they do call from 2-3 different numbers when they call several times a day. And this is on top of sending emails. Creditors may not call us more than 7 times within 7 consecutive days or call us within 7 days of talking to me about the debt. Everything outside of this is creditor harassment, is illegal and Im adding this to my case. 

5. Finally, the customer service in addition to being rude and dismissive just could not get rid of the {$10.00} late fees on my account! Although, I paid the full amount plus the additional {$10.00} late fee, these {$10.00} late fees still stayed on my account. I could see them every time I log into my account online. And one of the customer service representatives even told me I should pay them! Just look at the monthly payments I had made- they included the {$10.00} fee when I was late. They are so incompetent! 

If they can't see that I had already paid the late fee, and they can't differentiate between the actual loan amount and the administrative fee, they do not listen to the California Government and continue offering people high interest rate loans- how can we trust this company? Why are they still in business? 

I could go on and on about how I felt abused by this company, but the bottom line is that today they towed my car again. The car that I own at this point according to the new California law. 

They owe me at least {$8700.00}, plus the late fees ( they made me pay for the amount I did not owe them any more since I overpaid a long time ago without knowing ), and the stress, migraines and inconvenience they caused when they towed my car these 3 times. 

I demand my car, my car title, and {$8700.00} at your earliest convenience or I will take other measures that I have already discussed with my attorney.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation