Consumer complaint received 2023-08-31
Company: GREENSTATE CREDIT UNION
State: WI
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Problem with fees charged

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I purchased a XXXX XXXX from XXXX in XXXX, Wisconsin. I traded in XXXX XXXX on the XXXX. I had full insurance coverage on my XXXX. I have had full insurance coverage on all my vehicles since I started buying vehicles. I am not so ignorant as to not purchase insurance, plus it is the law. For some reason, the men at the dealership focused on speaking with my husband. When I asked my husband about the insurance, he said that the dealership would contact our insurance company to let them know we had changed vehicles. 

I have XXXX children, a XXXX-year-old and an adopted XXXX-year-old. I work full-time and am XXXX years old. Both of my children have special needs and are quite challenging. I have little time for anything other than working and taking care of them. I was incredibly happy that I did not have to contact the insurance agency. 

In early XXXX of XXXX I spoke with our insurance agent about the renewal or something else, I don't recall. At that time, I found out they had not gotten the update of my vehicle. At that time, I gave them the information needed to change the insurance to my newly purchased vehicle. 

In XXXX. My husband got a voice mail message from GreenState Credit Union that said we had to call them right away. I called them right away. Like every other time I had called them in the past, I got an answer service/voice mail. I left a message, and no one called me back. In fact, this has happened several times with this company. When I was setting up the automatic payment at the start of the loan, it took me several calls to get to someone that could help me. Several days later my husband handed me the phone and said someone from the credit union was on the line. English is not his native language ; he has problems understanding things over the phone at times. He gave me the phone and I spoke with a woman who told me that I did not have insurance on my vehicle and that they had force placed insurance. I told her I did have insurance ; however, I was told that my change of vehicles was too late, and that I had been sent many letters about this. I did not receive any such letters. I never saw them at least or I certainly would have addressed the problem. The woman on the phone was not friendly and spoke to me like I was a criminal. This led me to get angry and with the amount of stress in my life my anger management is not particularly good. I responded with some not so nice language and told her I was going to bring the car and put it in their parking lot or something to that effect. 

After the phone call, I went to my online account to make sure the insurance was updated. I saw on my loan details that they had charged me {$2600.00} for force placed insurance. {$2600.00}? That is an insane amount I worked at a bank for 15 years. I was the XXXX of the XXXX XXXX XXXX This was outrageous. Never once would I have charged a client that much money without speaking to them. Bear in mind, I did not receive any calls about this until after they had charged my loan. I purchased my car on XX/XX/XXXX. I updated my insurance company on XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX. Taking into consideration the 30 days granted before an insurance change is made, and the fact that the insurance was effective on the vehicle as of XX/XX/XXXX, there were approximately 41 days that my vehicle was technically without insurance. I was charged {$2600.00} for 41 days. In addition, they raised my payment amount more than {$200.00}. When I saw the {$2600.00} charge, I immediately transferred {$3000.00} to my loan. Then every month when my auto payment went through, I got a late notice and had to pay the extra amount. They finally put my payment back after the last email I sent them. It took me over three months to get a response after they raised my payment. There was no phone call or written response, I just noticed that the payment amount had been reduced to the original amount. 

I am a responsible consumer with particularly good credit. I have never experienced something like this in my life. I think charging me that much money is reprehensible. I understand that I made the mistake. I should have known more and been more aware. But the last few years since losing my job in banking and the struggles with my children, I don't pay good attention to details. Not to mention that no one called me. 

I want other consumers to be aware of this type of behavior from a financial institution, and that this financial institution is not looking out for their customer 's needs. They must not have very well-developed customer service procedures. It is likely that because technically I am not their customer, the dealer is, so they don't care about me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation