Consumer complaint received 2021-08-15
Company: Westlake Services, LLC
State: CO
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Problem with the interest rate

Complaint:
My car loan lending company is refusing to apply the payments properly to my account and is forcing me to pay more interest then I should be paying. For 3 years I have made many extra payments, but I am still not on target for early payment so I started to investigate. 

The XX/XX/XXXX bill was {$2.00} due to extra payments. On XX/XX/XXXX, I paid {$400.00} with XXXX going towards principle on the XX/XX/XXXX bill, but the company refused to apply the XXXX towards principle. In XXXX, I made a total of {$820.00} in payments. The company still refused to allow {$400.00} to be placed towards principle and allotted XXXX towards interest. But the payment due was only {$2.00} for the month. After looking at my XXXX spread sheet, I expected to owe under {$9000.00} on my car with all my extra payments. But I discovered I still owned over {$10000.00}. 

Where is my extra payments going? 

In XX/XX/XXXX I paid XXXX in the course of 10 days. I was already ahead of my payments according to my records. I paid, XX/XX/XXXX {$200.00} ( XXXX to interest ) XX/XX/XXXX {$200.00} ( XXXX to interest ) and XX/XX/XXXX {$1000.00} ( XXXX towards interest ). XX/XX/XXXX I paid another {$250.00} with XXXX going towards interest. 

My history shows I pay twice a month and I make extra payments and some months I made much larger payment than required. 100 % of every payment I have made in addition towards principle, has not gone towards principle. This is why after making extra payments every month, making extra payments every year, making lump sum payments, I still owe XXXX payments after already paying XXXX. 

I have paid off 3 other cars and I have always paid them off months prior to the terms. Because I am a student with debt, I was force to pay 15 % interest rate on {$19000.00} loan and XXXX payment plan for 7 years. My last car was {$350.00} for 5 years on a {$25000.00} loan. So, ya, I know I am taking up the exit zone due to the BS of having student loans. So, great for me and life long suppression. Nevertheless, I discussed my payment options with the guy at XXXX XXXX XXXX. I knew I could pay this car off way before the 7 year mark. But something is very wrong with this loan. I am not ahead of my payments. I am exactly where they want me in my terms. 

This does not seem to be run like a car loan, but a credit card. I believe this is why I am unable to pay off this loan, just like how I cant pay off my student loans. Its designed to stop me from successfully paying off my debt in order to maximize their profits. 

This is disgusting. So, what do I do with the extra, extra payment I was going to make this month? The extra XXXX on top of my XXXX on top of the XXXX last month? If I make an extra payment, its still going to get chopped up into interest despite the fact that I already made an extra XXXX payment this month. Lets see what happens. My XXXX bill for XX/XX/XXXX was paid at XXXX. Now, I am going to apply an extra XXXX. I bet, XXXX goes towards interest and not fully allotted towards principle.

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