Consumer complaint received 2023-09-25
Company: SANTANDER HOLDINGS USA, INC.
State: MA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
This complaint is directed to Santander Consumer USA for violation of XXXX XXXX provisions regarding auto-pay. I have a newly issued car loan with Santander Consumer USA. 
The loan was provisioned via XXXX bank and transferred to Santander. The email message from XXXX XXXX received XXXX XXXX stated The welcome information you will receive from Santander Consumer USA XXXX will explain how to set up autopay with them, so you never have to worry about missing a payment. 
The first statement received from Santander Consumer USA in the mail, dated XX/XX/XXXX, indicated an amount of {$790.00} due on XX/XX/XXXX. The statement included payment options. The statement did not stipulate that auto-pay would be utilized to collect payments. In fact the statement directed me to go to their website to sign up for autopay if I wished to do so. I DID NOT sign up for XXXX. 
Because I am a conscientious and financially responsible person, I made my payment on XX/XX/XXXX in the amount of {$790.00} to Santander Consumer USA through my banks online bill pay servicce. Santander Consumer USA proceeded to auto withdraw funds from my account on XX/XX/XXXX for the same monthly payment in the amount of {$790.00}. I immediately notified Santander on XX/XX/XXXX that they took out a payment that was : XXXX. Not authorized. 
XXXX. Duplicative of a payment that was already made. 
XXXX. Damaging to my bank account balance ( this resulted in a XXXX balance in my account ). 
Santander Consumer USA instructed me to fax in a bank statement showing the withdrawals, request to stop autopay ( even though I never authorized it ), and request to have my account credited with the payment they took in error. I complied with every request despite security concerns with sending my confidential information to an unknown fax number ( they did not offer any other secure means of requesting my money back ). I downloaded a statement of account from my bank which showed both withdrawals and the balance for each transaction and faxed it to the number they provided on XX/XX/XXXX. 
On XX/XX/XXXX Santander contacted me by phone and told me they could not refund the payment because my statements did not show account balance. I indicated I was at that exact moment staring at the statement which stipulated account balance. When I asked them to tell me how many payments were made to my account XXXX in XXXX, they read back the XXXX payments made exactly as I outlined them above. I told them they had XXXX hours to refund the money. 
To date, Santander has not refunded the duplicate payment, nor have they, at minimum, offered to apply the payment to what would be due in XXXX, XXXX. 
Santander Consumer is in violation of the notice requirements of XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX because they never disclosed that they were using autopay for my monthly payments. Santander Consumer USA is also in violation of the rectification of errors provisions of XXXX. Since this appears to be a process in place between Santander Consumer USA and XXXX XXXX, I am assuming there are many more consumer victims out there.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief