Consumer complaint received 2018-12-31
Company: Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc.
State: KY
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Auto debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Seized or attempted to seize your property

Complaint:
The purpose of this letter is to document my effort to negotiate with your company prior to suing you in small claims court for wrongful repossession of my automobile on XX/XX/2018. I request immediate refund of {$790.00} in lost wages and expenses directly resulting from your mistake. Should I not receive a definitive response from Santander within thirty days awarding me this amount in full, I will file the attached petition with my local clerk of courts and commence small claims litigation against Santander. Please understand that I do not haveand have never hadany contractual relationship of any kind with your company. I am therefore not bound to any pre-litigation mediation or arbitration, nor to any litigation venue outside that in which the wrongful repossession took place.

To summarize, Santander ordered the unannounced repossession of my vehicle even though ( 1 ) the car had clear, unencumbered title, and ( 2 ) Santander has no lienholder relationship regarding this vehicle with either me or the individual from whom I purchased the vehicle. Santander has admitted fault in wrongfully repossessing my vehicle without notice in the attached letter to my legal counsel dated XX/XX/2018. In this letter, you claim that Santander issued a Multi State Vehicle ( MSV ) Release on XX/XX/2018which is somehow the same day you had my vehicle wrongfully repossessed. Give the difficulty I have experienced in the past several weeks in getting my vehicle back, this claim is nonsensical and likely untrue.

This probable lack of veracity in your explanation is illustrated by the fact that Santander utterly refused to speak with me multiple times well after the repossession ( and after the MSV Release was allegedly sent out ) because my name wasnt on the account. The company who repossessed the vehicle also refused to speak with me for the very same reason. This is in spite of the fact that I approached them with a copy of the vehicles title, which lists me as the owner. Am I truly to believe that Santander realized its mistake internally on the day of repossession and immediately sent out the MSV Release to correct its mistake, even though neither Santander nor the repossessing company would even speak with me for over three weeks afterwards? It took weeks of personal costs, lost wages, and a hired and paid-for attorney for Santander to even respond to someone about my situation. I hope you will agree with me that the most likely explanation for this is that Santander never issue the MSV Release until my legal counsel contacted you long after the repossession occurred.

I am a refugee from XXXX who fled communism two years ago so that my family and I could build a better life in the United States. My husband and I both work full-time and receive no public assistance of any kind, in spite of the fact that we arrived to America with just the clothes on our backs and with no knowledge of English. We have made our life here dollar by dollar. I suspect that this matters little to you, but as someone still trying to understand a society and language different from that to which I am accustomed, this experience has been nothing short of traumatic. Your companys error has made my familys life a living nightmare for the last several weeks. I am not asking for any more than the direct expenses that I incurred because of your companys error, refusal to speak to me for three weeks, and subsequent failure to correct your mistake.

I respectfully ask that you resolve this matter by refunding me my costs so that I do not have to sue Santander in court.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation