Consumer complaint received 2019-08-08
Company: NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
State: CA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
I apologize in advance because this complaint is years in the making. I will do my best to give you as much detail as possible but please understand that because this has been going on for 4 1/2 years I can't give you specific dates on everything. 

Let me start out by saying I am a XXXX military veteran. Part of my XXXX is XXXX problems. I don't say this to garner sympathy, but to inform you that I did serve my country proudly and am hurt by how I'm being treated by my credit union who I thought was supposed to help me. Many years ago while I was still on XXXX XXXX, I bought a XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX. I bought it from a dealer named XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. Everything went well because I already was approved for a loan through Navy Federal Credit Union. Everything went well until I went to the XXXX DMV in NY the next day to try and register the vehicle. The DMV told me they couldn't register the vehicle under my name because I didn't have a title. After I found out about this, I called Navy Federal to find out if they had the tile so I can register the vehicle under my name. Navy Federal told me they didn't. I then tried calling the dealer I bought the car from but I never once received an answer. Because I was XXXX XXXX, I was not able to follow up on this for about a week but once I did that's when things hit the fan. 

When I get my next off-duty days, I go back to the dealer I bought the vehicle from. The dealer was nowhere to be found. I mean the entire dealership and not just the salesman. The entire lot was empty and it looked like a ghost town. At this point I am stressing out and I am wondering what's going on. I call Navy Federal and I ask them if they ever received the title for this vehicle to which they told me no. Now I have a vehicle that is not under my name, and that I won't be able to drive because the license plate is temporary. I couldn't even insure the vehicle. I then head to the XXXX XXXX Police Department to begin an investigation and truth be told no one wants to help me out. I seemed like a nuisance to them and nothing ever really got done. Because I was getting nowhere, I called Navy Federal Credit Union and ask what can I do to have this loan undone because I now had a vehicle that I could n't drive, couldn't register under my name, and whose title was nowhere to be found. In their own words they essentially tell me, too bad so sad. Over the next few weeks I talk to Navy Federal at least 2 more times wondering how I can get out of this loan but they didn't help me at all and told me I'm going to have to pay for the loan no matter what because they lent me the money. 

From that point I stopped driving the vehicle because it wasn't registered to me and I couldn't register it without the title. Navy Federal never obtained the title so I was not going to drive a vehicle that was not mine and had no tags. Furthermore, if I got into an accident, I didn't want to be liable for damages since I couldn't even insure the vehicle. Because of this, the vehicle was literally parked in the yard at my residence for three years. Throughout all those years I paid on the loan to Navy Federal because I didn't know what to do and Navy Federal never helped me with anything. XXXX came and I was going to be moving to California as I was no longer in the service and wouldn't have a home. I didn't know what to do with the vehicle that I could n't drive so I made a last ditch effort and headed to the XXXX Police Station and see if there was anything more that could be done. Thankfully, the police officer helping me at that station was a good officer. He did a real investigation and found out that the vehicle I purchased was a stolen vehicle. He even found out who the prior owner was. The police called the previous owner and asked if they still wanted the vehicle. The previous owner told them no. Once the police department deemed the vehicle no longer needed to be registered as stolen, they removed the stolen status of the vehicle and made it so I could finally register the vehicle under my name. This was either in XXXX or XXXX of XXXX. I started the process but unfortunately it was too late for me to be able to obtain the tile anymore as my departure for California had arrived. I was forced to leave the vehicle with a friend named XXXX as I could not risk driving it across the country with 3 year old tags, no insurance, and no registration. Keep in mind at this point I have already paid 3 1/2 years for a vehicle that was stolen and has never been legally mine. 

Once I got to California, I eventually ended up getting the title to my vehicle. I start making plans to register the vehicle in my name, insure the vehicle, and pick it up from XXXX. However, the same time I got my registration sent to me by mail, my friend XXXX calls me and tells me my vehicle has been stolen. It feels like it happened the exact same time. I call Navy Federal to tell them what happened but as they told me before many years prior, too bad so sad. You have to pay for this vehicle loan. Even after all this I continued to make payments faithfully until about 2 months ago. Truth be told, I can no longer afford it. 

Because I feel like I've been taken advantage of, and because nobody else would help me, I finally reached a company that had a good reputation from all the reviews I've seen. I told this company about my situation and they were very honest with me in telling me they are unsure if they could help me but that they would attempt to assist me If I chose to enlist them in their aid. They said I would be their guinea pig  since they had handled cases that resembled my problem but not one specifically like it. I agreed since they were the only ones willing to help me and they seemed honest so I decided to let them get involved. Well I thought I had a hard time with Navy Federal but these guys had it worse. 

My representatives by the name of XXXX XXXX XXXX started calling Navy Federal and sending power of attorney by mail. After a month they received no response of any kind by Navy Federal. I go back to XXXX XXXX XXXX office on XX/XX/XXXX and they call Navy Federal in front of me. In that conversation, representatives from navy Federal don't seem like they know what they are doing. They are asking my representative questions like, " what department do you want to send the power of attorney to '' and " what account are you sending the power of attorney for? '' After letting them know he wants Navy Federal as a whole to have the power of attorney on file and not just one department they finally end up giving him a fax number of XXXX. They also give him an address of XXXX power of attorney XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Fl XXXX. My representative re-mails the poa and faxes the poa to them on the XXXX of XXXX. By the XXXX of XXXX, he receives another call from a representative asking him the same question as before, " what department do you want to send this to? '' Please keep in mind that my representative has been trying to forward them power of attorney since XX/XX/XXXX in order to begin discussing the situation to him and he is still receiving these ridiculous questions and I am still waiting for progress to be made. He finally tells the representative that he is surprised a large organization such as Navy Federal is having trouble figuring out what they are supposed to be doing with a power of attorney especially since they have the conversation with him as well as his intentions recorded and noted down. 

By XX/XX/XXXX, I came back to XXXX XXXX XXXX to get another update as to what's going on. We call Navy Federal Credit Union together again and this is when all XXXX broke loose. We were on the phone for over 50 minutes. We were transferred and put on hold numerous times. They were trying to find out if they even had authorization to speak with him. My representative informed them how he had been forwarding power of attorney numerous times and now was starting to understand why he was reached for assistance by me. Finally a Navy Federal employee informed him that they did receive the power of attorney and it was accepted, but that the employee couldn't see it in her system. She was going to reach out to another department to figure out what's going on. When she came back she was asking for more time to " activate '' the Power of Attorney. I was getting visibly upset so my representative pressed on and informed Navy Federal that we needed to speak to someone now or I would file this very complaint I am now filing. He was not going to accept that Navy Federal noted they received POA and accepted POA but that they needed more time because they were having IT issues. After the 25 minute mark, we reached another representative in the collections department. 

Miss XXXX is the representative in the collections department. Once he reached her he began describing the situation from the very beginning. The beginning being me being sold a stolen vehicle from a shady auto dealership. He described the situation of everything that I went through in not being able to register my vehicle because I didn't have the tile and nor did Navy Federal. He described how when I reached out to Navy Federal for help I was basically told I had to pay for the loan no matter what happened. He described how here I am 4 1/2 years later and thousands of dollars poorer for a loan that should have never been allowed to continue. He then begins asking several questions about when the loan originated, when title was received by Navy Federal, and several others. Miss XXXX begins telling him that she doesn't know the answer to most of these but offered to settle the debt and send us to the settlement department. We were then put on hold again. 

When Miss XXXX comes back, she confirms to us that title for this vehicle was not obtained until XX/XX/XXXX! This is 3 1/2 years after the loan originated. My representative asked her straight up " Do you see a problem there? '' Miss XXXX said " I do, I do see a problem there. '' She then said the loan was transferred to a signature loan. My representative then begins asking more questions and Miss XXXX continues to answer several of them with I don't know. She also kept saying on numerous occasions that she doesn't feel like she was very helpful. Finally when the conversation is almost over Miss XXXX turns on her collector mode switch and the conversation begins to turn sour. She asks my rep if I had kept in touch with Navy Federal about the situation. Obviously I did and he tells her as such but then she begins quoting the number of calls I've made to them supposedly. She lists 3 calls I've made since XXXX and then says that's all the calls I've made and not once did I tell them about the stolen vehicle. She then begins to attempt to establish that I never told them this vehicle was stolen but my representative was not having it. He tells her its highly unlikely I've only spoken to them only 3 times since there was communication at the beginning of the loan. Finally she clarifies that I only spoke to collection 3 times. 

My representative then says he understood I only spoke with collections 3 times but that Navy Federal as a whole had received numerous calls from me. Again she said she didn't know anything about that and then began to get really aggressive. She informed my representative that she was going to terminate the call because she didn't feel comfortable that my representative was asking her questions she didn't know the answer to. She then began raising her voice and interjecting and speaking over my representative. Finally my representative terminated the call himself as she was being belligerent and he was not going to get anywhere from that point on. 

I am filing this complaint because I don't know what else to do. I have been paying for a vehicle that I have never been able to claim as my own since the very beginning. This is not an I wrecked my car and don't want to pay for it anymore or my car broke down and its too expensive to fix so I don't want to pay for it anymore type of claim. This is literally an I never owned my car from day 1 and have been paying for the vehicle for 4 1/2 years without being able to use it. This is a my credit union funded a loan and never unwound the loan or got their money back once they found out I couldn't get title or register the vehicle, insure the vehicle, or transfer it under my name with them as the lienholder. This is an I asked my credit union for help and have been met with a cold shoulder and asked to pay a loan when they know I was ripped off from the beginning complaint.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation