Consumer complaint received 2020-07-06
Company: OneMain Finance Corporation
State: MD
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Title loan
Issue: Charged fees or interest you didn't expect

Complaint:
I took out my loan in XXXX of XXXX ; I needed to take care of some home repairs. I had received an offer in my email and got pre-approved on the computer. When I went in I sat at a desk in the front of the store and she went over all of the information with me that confirmed everything I had looked at. When we wrapped things up in the front it was my understanding that my monthly payments would be around {$350.00} a month. I believe that by the end of that time it was slightly higher like, maybe, {$370.00}. I felt confident with that as I had planned to pay twice a month and my payments would be almost double the payment amount. I kept saying that I was going to pay it off in half the time. 

Also, while I was in the front of the store they sold me insurance. There were two types and I agreed to both. As I was contemplating them, however, the person who helped me called over to another person asking if they had to be purchased together. That is, if you were going to get one of the insurances you had to get both of them. The other person said yes. I was then led to a back office for the signing process. I had agreed to take out the {$17.00}, XXXX using my car as collateral. When I sat down I saw a sign that explicitly stated that the women had lied to me in requiring that I purchase both insurances. That should have told me all I needed to know about One Main but being averse to conflict I proceeded. When I mentioned it in a later phone call I received a weak apology. It wasn't until I received my first paper bill that I saw my monthly amount due was {$520.00}. This was NOT what I had agreed to as I sat there in the front of the office. I called a time or two and said  that something was wrong but there was no admission of wrong doing only simple reiteration of what I already knew. I later looked more closely at my bill and saw that my interest rate was about 23.75 %. I was floored and felt cheated. I don't want anyone else to make the mistake I did. 

I might add that once you have the loan there is a decided lack of transparency. Ideally, one would be able to log into an account and see a ledger style breakdown of their account that shows each credit and debit including interest charges. The first time I requested such a printout I received an email scan of another customer 's check stub. 

This was a bad experience for me. It was entirely possible for this to be the ideal business transaction : win/win This has left me with questions about what incentives they give their employees and if those might have prompted this experience. I don't know, but I do know that I would not have even walked into their store with an offer of a loan at a 23.75 % interest rate. 

Frankly, I think that when I discussed my payment schedule she made a change to maximize profits for OneMain. I had said that I wanted to be able to automate my payments and forget about them. It may be better to manually pay this bill. 

Every month I look at this bill and I'm angry. I want to be sure that others don't have this experience. 

I walked out ignorantly confident that the documents I carried reflected the information that had been shown to me in the front of the store. 

No change of interest rate was ever brought to my attention during the application or signing process.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief