Consumer complaint received 2018-03-12
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: NY
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Problems at the end of the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Unable to receive car title or other problem after the loan is paid off

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I scheduled an online payment through Ally 's online portal for the full balance of my loan at that point {$17000.00}. On XX/XX/XXXXthe payment was updated and showed up as paid in full in my online account. After my account was updated online on Tuesday I requested a loan satisfaction letter and the lien release documents to be sent to me as soon as possible, they told me that since my payment was made online there is a waiting period of 10 business days before they can release the lien, they told me that the online payment is considered a non-certified method of payment and therefore XXXX requires a waiting period. That didn't sound right to me so I looked over the law and regulations and couldn't find anything related to that statement so on Wednesday XX/XX/XXXX I sent a new request for my lien release and loan satisfaction stating that the waiting period is unfair and that they should have actual brick and mortar branches if they, as an online bank, are not considering online payments as a valid method of payment, they again responded with the same excuse about their waiting period. Friday morning I received a notification on my personal email regarding a document that has been uploaded to my Ally online account, so I logged in and found the loan satisfaction letter including the VIN number as I had previously requested but had missed my husband 's name and my middle name was missed spelled. I couldn't reach out back to them on Friday but did it on Saturday, they apologized for the typo but said that they could not send me a corrected letter because their back-office team does not work on the weekends. I again requested the lien release to be sent out to me that same day since the loan had been paid in full since Monday!. I was extremely upset since their service associates kept on repeating the same things over and over again without providing any actual help. I requested to speak to a supervisor and was offered to have my lien release documents and loan satisfaction letter with my correct name sent out to me overnight for the week of XX/XX/XXXX. Today, MondayXX/XX/XXXX I reached out again to make sure the documents were being processed but as soon as a representative started looking at my account they came back with the same answer about the waiting period and that the lien will not be released until XX/XX/XXXX. At that point, I asked where in the law does it say that the lender is allowed to hold on to liens that have been paid in full for such a long period of time. The representative told me that it is not on the law but on their procedures, so I requested a copy of the disclaimer signed by myself where they explain this " procedure '' to me, and the representative said that they don't have such disclaimer. I asked the representative if what they were doing was illegal and she answered YES. 
I have been trying to get answers from someone at Ally who is actually capable of giving them and not just talking to call center staff members who have very limited training and no room to get off the script, but they refuse to get me in touch with anyone else. 
As a consumer, I feel violated and absolutely vulnerable to fall prey to this predatory lending practices that are completely against the consumer, is this discrimination? am I being a victim of a robbery? The CFPB and the office of the AG should look closely at this practices and make sure that the consumers know what they are getting into when they decide to transact with this shady institution. 
Now, I'm being left with a transaction that I can't conclude until these people from Ally come to terms with their procedures and decide to release the lien on my car. In the meantime, I have paid my loan in full and have no legal rights to transact with my car.

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