Consumer complaint received 2022-01-27
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: TX
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Problem with fees charged

Complaint:
In approximately XXXX of XXXX I cosigned on a vehicle for my son with Ally Financial. The vehicle was stolen and wrecked in the beginning of XXXX. The stolen vehicle was not covered under the liability insurance he had, and the vehicle was totaled. Not sure why there was no full coverage on the vehicle, that remains unclear. He eventually fell behind on the payments and I was not made aware of the situation until the vehicle was repossessed in XXXX of XXXX. To get the vehicle released I had to pay the balance due ( {$1300.00} ) according to their records plus {$400.00} fee to get the vehicle out of repossession. When I looked at the Ally statements my son was behind a partial payment for XXXX and the XXXX payment and the due date for the next payment In XXXX had not come due, which means he was two months behind when they repossessed the vehicle. I was notified in XXXX of XXXX my son had fell behind over the course of the previous 4 months and I again had to step in and catch up the payments in XXXX of XXXX, when I went to make the payment a miscellaneous charge of {$1300.00} was on the bill. When I inquired as to what the charge was for the Ally Financial department said they didn't know, and they would look into it. During that same phone call, I asked that Ally send me a breakdown of the payments on the vehicle over the last 12 months because I could not access all the statements online. A month went by and I heard nothing, so I again inquired to Ally about the miscellaneous charge, and they said it was from their repo department and gave me a number to call. I called the number and an automated answering system asked for my information and then told me I had nothing in repo and to call back in two hours and the system hung up. I tried calling several times and the same thing happened each time. I engaged Ally again when I made the XX/XX/XXXX payment and asked about the miscellaneous charge of {$1300.00} and again, they said they would get back to me after transferring me to 6 different people. I went online and checked the account in the beginning of XX/XX/XXXX, and it said my XXXX payment was past due although a payment was shown to have been made, except instead of applying the payment to the vehicle it was applied to the miscellaneous charge. I contacted Ally AGAIN and they just kept sending me from one person to the next and I it was getting nowhere, and my credit is being affected very negatively. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I contacted the XXXX XXXX XXXX regarding the matter and on XX/XX/XXXX Ally sent me an email with the Customer Relations agents contact information and directed me to call them. I tried many times to reach the agent and just got voicemail. Finally on XX/XX/XXXX I was able to reach the Ally agent and she talked with me about my complaint and said she would investigate it and call and/or email me back with her findings. I did not hear from the Ally agent and tried many times to reach her leaving a voicemail each time. After not being able to reach her, I followed up with the XXXX and let them know I rejected Allys response. 

I requested, via email, from Ally that they send me all the statements since the inception of the loan because I can not access but a few of the statements online. The partial set of statements I have for XXXX has a lot of questions that need to be answered. In the statements for XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX of XXXX the payments all went to an Other Charge section of the statement instead of to the loan payment, this also occurred in XXXX of XXXX. Each time the payment was applied to this Other Charge the total balance due went up and was being reported to the credit bureau as behind. In addition to the credit impact Ally told be they were going to repossess the vehicle in XXXX of XXXX if I did not pay them {$3300.00} of which {$1300.00} was a miscellaneous charge as indicated on the Ally web account. I refused to pay the {$1300.00} unless they told me what it was for, outlined in the early part of my writeup. This brings me to today in which I am requesting assistance on this issue with Ally. I have had nothing but issues with Ally and there shady billing tactics and it needs to be investigated.

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 monetary relief