Consumer complaint received 2022-11-30
Company: HYUNDAI CAPITAL AMERICA
State: CA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
Kia has continually failed to rebalance payments made on XX/XX/2022 and XX/XX/2022 to principal-only. These extra payments, which I routinely make between my monthly auto-payments, are my way to reduce reduce total interest owed on my loan. On XX/XX/2022, I made a payment of {$1600.00}. As I had done successfully for at least a DOZEN PREVIOUS PAYMENTS, I called the next business day ( Monday XX/XX/2022 ) and requested that Kia re-allocate 100 % of that payment to principal. Similarly, on XX/XX/2022, I made a payment of {$650.00}. I also called the next business day ( Monday, XX/XX/XXXX ) to have this payment re-allocated to my principal balance in order to reduce my total interest due on my next autopay ( XX/XX/2022 ). It has now been more than a month-and-a-half since these requests and Kia still has not made these adjustments.

I have spent hours on the phone calling Kia Finance, and have been constantly lied to about the current status of these requests. For example, on XX/XX/2022 I was told by the representative that she had placed a 'high priority request ' on my behalf to expedite my now months-old re-allocation requests. When I called Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX and spoke with XXXX XXXX XXXX ' I was told that no such request had even been put in. I also spoke with XXXX XXXX XXXX on Tuesday, XX/XX/2022 who told me that he had put in a " high priority '' request and that it should be processed by XXXX XXXX XXXX When I called to follow-up, I find that XXXX ' had associated the request WITH THE WRONG PAYMENT DATE! My problems are related strictly to payments made on XX/XX/2022 and XX/XX/2022 -- 'XXXX XXXX had associated my complaint with a random payment made on XX/XX/2022. Unbelievable! 

I have also made at least two additional requests with other Kia staff to have my rebalance applied -- some staff say that the requests were processed correctly even though they are clearly not ( I can confirm this by comparing the data from my Kia Online portal with my own calculations spreadsheet ; I have also confirmed that the payoff quote provided by the Kia portal uses the INCORRECT principal and interest-due amounts ). One Supervisor even had the gall to tell me what I was wrong and that Kia was correct. I asked this supervisor to furnish a transaction record showing the status of my payments and how the payments were applied. I received this document via email on Tuesday, XX/XX/2022 and was not surprised to see that THE PAYMENTS WERE CLEARLY ALLOCATED INCORRECTLY, DESPITE MY REQUESTS! Kia had taken out the amount of my monthly payment ( {$460.00} ), extracted interest, and THEN applied the rest to principal. This story was true for payments made on both XX/XX/2022 ( {$1600.00} ) and on XX/XX/2022 ( {$650.00} ). What kind of training do these Supervisors have? Completely unacceptable. 

Some lower-level staff even put in their own 'high priority requests ' on my behalf -- I have waited many periods of 'three to XXXX business days ' and countless 'emails to the back office ' only for none of these requests to be processed. Another rep I spoke with literally admitted the error is on Kia 's end, yet nobody at this company has taken any responsibility or has even been able to explain the error to me. HOW CAN YOU FIX SOMETHING IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS? There is apparently a back-room group called the XXXX XXXX ' that handles these escalations, yet as far as I can tell this group can not be contacted directly and they act outside of accountability, and on their own whims. 

This all seems like a really great deal for Kia though -- after all, by failing to correctly process reallocation requests, Kia gets to squeeze easy extra interest money out of its customers ( also known as THEFT ). And since I am very close to paying off my car, I now have XXXX options : ( XXXX ) WAIT for Kia to fix its errors and end up paying EVEN MORE interest than I have to, or ( XXXX ) Pay the car off as planned BUT pay the INCORRECT payoff amount. And do you really think that Kia is going to reimburse me once they get their money? I am fed up with this company and will NEVER finance with Kia again. I have also made sure that nobody I know will Finance with Kia, or even purchase Kia vehicles, again.

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 explanation