Consumer complaint received 2018-05-30
Company: FORD MOTOR CREDIT CO.
State: MI
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Lease
Issue: Struggling to pay your loan
Sub-issue: Problem after you declared or threatened to declare bankruptcy

Complaint:
I am a veteran that suffered XXXX XXXX from serving in the XXXX. While at home, it got worse as I worked hard to support my family of XXXX young children and wife going through XXXX XXXX. Several times I was out sick from work because I was XXXX XXXX XXXX due to these XXXX. We started to get behind on our lease payments, but always caught up within a couple of months. At the time, we were going through bankruptcy to help alleviate some of our debts at the advice of our lawyer. Then my XXXX went out for good on XX/XX/XXXX. I was taken by ambulance from work to the local hospital. When I was admitted, a consult was done with XXXX and pending that I did not have any changes in bodily functions my XXXX was scheduled for XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX. Between the time that I had first incurred the XXXX and ended up at the hospital, my XXXX XXXX XXXX to a point that could have XXXX XXXX XXXX in a way that would have made me lose XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX with only a 10 percent chance of regaining them after XXXX. Following XXXX I was not allowed to work for a minimum of a month until I followed up with the XXXX. This then left us with no income at all since my wife was unable to work due to her having full-time classes, clinical, taking care of our XXXX young kids and me while I recovered. We were scheduled to meet with the bankruptcy court within a week or two from my XXXX, but had to request a change for just my wife to go since I was XXXX XXXX XXXX. Before the bankruptcy lifted, my wife made a payment and had another payment scheduled for the following week. She called and spoke with Ford Motor Company to make the payment and they told her she was unable to set up a payment plan. The woman that she spoke with said she would write that we wanted to do that in the notes. We were told to call as soon as the bankruptcy lifted to schedule a payment plan. My wife kept checking the account to see if she was able to set up a payment plan for the whole week following the bankruptcy lift. I received a voicemail, but no call, the Friday morning after the bankruptcy lifted on Monday, XX/XX/XXXX that just said to call Ford. My wife did not receive a call and I did not have any other calls. That following Saturday Morning, our Truck was repossessed. We called the company immediately and they told us that we had to forfeit the truck immediately, but they would give us sufficient time to try to claim it after the fees were processed. When we called back that afternoon and spoke with the recovery personnel they told us that we could have made the payment on the phone with the repo truck there and would have been able to keep the truck. When I asked the recovery agent on the phone if they had known that we had just made a payment the previous week and had one scheduled they denied communication between the departments, and would not answer my question. They were rude with us and talked down to us the entire time and every person we talked to at Ford had a different answer. Then we were told to call back after the account had updated in order to find out our fees so that we could have the option to refinance or pay on the truck. We called every day until the system had been updated. We called to dealership to see if we could work out a refinancing option. The man that was the manager of the recovery department at Ford told us that we " shouldn't have bought something that we couldn't afford, and if we didn't have XXXX in cash we weren't going to get our truck back because he thought working with us was a bad business decision. '' He also told us that whether or not would be allowed to refinance was up to him, and that our state didn't have a law that he had to follow, and they didn't have to notify us of taking the truck at all. 
After this situation, we were trying to figure out how to refinance because we should have had about 21 days to claim the truck when I saw them towing it down the interstate less than 2 weeks after the truck was taken from us. After Ford made it clear that they were not going to allow us to try to get the truck back they sent us to collections. I spoke with the woman in the collections department and told her the situation she said that she would try to negotiate with us. My wife attempted to negotiate lower payments with her on the balance, and she denied it. She would not take any partial payment and would continue with action regardless if we were paying a little or not. Then we offered to make a settlement of XXXX with the collection department to be paid in one day in XX/XX/XXXX and she said she could not accept that low of an amount. Then my wife asked her if it was her decision and she said yes but then it would have to be approved by her manager. She said that she could accept the XXXX as long as we paid an additional XXXX ( approximate ) in less than two weeks from that day, which wouldn't have even allowed for another payday to come. My wife asked if she could pay the XXXX and make smaller payments to pay off the remaining balance and the collection agent said no that we would have to pay the full amount at the full lease monthly payment amount. Then, we were sent to a lawyer 's office for collection and just received a summons today, ( XX/XX/XXXX ). We tried several times to be civil and work out a payment option that would work for us and them but every time they refused our offer and told us that we couldn't make partial payments to prevent further action. They were rude and condescending when we challenged them. At one point the collection agent yelled at me and hung up on me, and shortly after that we received the letter from the lawyer 's office.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation