Consumer complaint received 2019-08-23
Company: HYUNDAI CAPITAL AMERICA
State: PA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Lease
Issue: Problems at the end of the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Problem with paying off the loan

Complaint:
XX/XX/XXXX My father passed away a resident of Florida. I am his daughter and the personal representative of his estate. I live in Pennsylvania. He had a leased XXXX XXXX XXXX. The term of the lease ends XX/XX/XXXX. I called the Kia dealership shortly after his death to obtain options for returning the car and learned that the overall cost of returning the car could not be determined but was likely to be more than keeping it for the rest of the lease term. I continued making the monthly payments on time. 

XX/XX/XXXX The estate is running out of money, and I was in Florida taking care of estate matters so I contacted Kia Motors Finance to arrange to return the car. I spoke to XXXX who was difficult to communicate with because she spoke poor English. She told me that someone from their deceased dept. would call me in 3 - 5 business days, and I could not return the car until they call. I told her that I would not be in Florida in 3 - 5 business days and asked to speak to someone in the deceased dept. She said no. I had to wait for them to call me. I told her I would not be back in Florida until XXXX and asked if I could return the car to a local dealership. She told me that, if I did, no one would be responsible for it. 

XX/XX/XXXX Still no contact from the deceased dept. I again called customer service and spoke to XXXX who told me that no one from  their company would ever contact me until they had my father 's death certificate and letters from the Court evidencing my appointment as the personal representative ( something that XXXX never mentioned nor requested ). I faxed the documents to their back office as instructed with correspondence telling the story and again requesting a response. 

XX/XX/XXXX Received no response to my faxed letter of XX/XX/XXXX. Called and spoke to XXXX who told me that the car can be returned to any Kia dealership. She transferred me to XXXX of their Lease End Dept.  for more specifics about returning the car. He was very nice and helpful. He gave me the name of the dealership in XXXX where XXXX bought the car and instructions for returning it. He told me that if we return the car with payments owing, we must pay the remaining payments plus a {$400.00} disposition fee. I was told that the remaining payments are {$850.00}. He also said that, if we sell the car, we do not have to pay the {$400.00} disposition fee. He also said that, if we make all of the payments under the lease, there will be no disposition fee. 
I asked XXXX for the amount to be paid, and he told me {$15000.00} payoff, made up of {$14000.00} payoff plus the {$850.00}. He told me I had to speak to the billing dept., so he transferred me to XXXX who was not at all nice. Ultimately, she told me that we owed payments of {$190.00} for XXXX through XXXX ( 5 mos. @ $ XXXX. ) plus {$45.00} for overdraft ( closing of Dads XXXX account ) and {$18.00} of late fees for a total of {$1000.00}. 

XX/XX/XXXX I intended to pay the {$1000.00} now to bring the account up to date so I can surrender the car on XX/XX/XXXX and owe nothing more, subject to the inspection and mileage requirements. However, I had not gotten anything in writing ; and I did not trust them because in every call Ive made so far Ive gotten different information. I also received a notice in the mail from the collections dept. with conflicting amounts. So I called the number on the notice and spoke to XXXX who spoke poor English and whom I could barely hear. I was on the phone for almost an hour with her. I asked for someone who could speak English, I asked for a supervisor, and I asked her to speak up more times than I can count ; but everyone else was busy. Initially, she confirmed the {$1000.00} ; but when I asked for it in writing ( the whole purpose of my call in the first place ), she had to request it to be faxed to me in 24 hours - 48 hours at most. Since no one at Kia has responded to me at all since I called on XX/XX/XXXX, I fully expected that I would not be receiving this fax ; so I went through the numbers with her again to make sure I was paying the correct amount. This time, she came up with an amount of {$1200.00}. I asked and asked what the difference between the {$1200.00} and {$1000.00} was, and she would not tell me. She said I had to speak with the Lease End Dept. and gave me a completely different number than the one I called before. I found out that it was because she gave me the number for customer service, not lease end. 

I spoke with XXXX (  XXXX ) XXXX of lease end who told that information I was given earlier was wrong and that the {$400.00} disposition fee is always owed if the car is turned back in to the dealership for any reason, plus {$36.00} of sales tax must be paid. ( That is 9 %, but Florida 's sales tax rate is only 7 %. ) She also told me that we must pay sales tax on the residuary value of the car if we turn it back in to the dealer, which will be another {$980.00} based on an estimated residual value of {$14000.00}. She told me to pay all sums under the lease ( other than the disposition fee ), we must pay {$860.00} which is calculated as follows : Lease payments XXXX NFS when account was closed XXXX Late fee XXXX Total XXXX I mailed a check the same day. 

XX/XX/XXXX I called Kia Finance again this morning because more than 48 hours has passed, and I have not received the promised fax from Kia Finance. I was on the phone for about an hour, and I received no help other than an offer to transfer me to another dept. to start all over. I called the Lease End Dept. at ( XXXX ) XXXX. I got a round of recordings asking me for all kinds of information and then a recording that started providing information I did not want. I pressed 0 to get to a human being. The call was transferred, I received another recording, got put on hold for 15 minutes, and then it cut me off. So I tried calling XXXX whom I was told on XXXX XXXX was in the Lease End Dept. He had given me his extension, so I was hoping to bypass all the recordings and get to a real person. There was no option to enter an extension. It was the same set of recordings and then XXXX, another rep. whose English was not great, who would do nothing for me. I begged and begged her to transfer me to her supervisor, but she ignored me and kept asking for information she should have already had. She said she had to review the account ; but when she did, she still had no information. She told me that she could not talk to me because I didnt have authority to talk about the account. I told her more than once that I had faxed a death certificate and copy of letters of administration to the back office and gave her all of the specifics ( fax number, date of fax, and confirmation from a previous rep. ) so she could see that they had the documents. After about a half hour, she finally agreed that she would find a supervisor. She put me on hold for a while and then came back and told me that the supervisor was busy. After all this nonsense, she asked me if I was waiting for a fax of payoff information! That was the first thing I asked for when this lengthy call started. However, she said the only thing she could do was to transfer me to customer service. I told I didnt want to start the whole process of making this request again because I was on the phone for hours, and no one from Kia Finance has ever done what they said they would. I asked XXXX for a telephone number for the president of Kia Finance, but she said they dont have it. I asked for any number for  corporate or anyone who could help me, but she didnt have any. I asked for an e-mail address, and she said they dont have that either. I finally terminated the call in frustration. 

At this point, I dont know what else to do. I just received a monthly statement from Kia Finance dated XX/XX/XXXX addressed to my father at his home in Florida.  I had given them my information on XX/XX/XXXX, and they are still sending correspondence to an empty house. It took 10 days for that statement to get to me, and they added charges that I must dispute. It's very difficult to lose a parent. For a company to treat a grieving child like this is unconscionable.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation