Consumer complaint received 2018-01-13
Company: Friendly Finance Corporation
State: MD
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Struggling to pay your loan
Sub-issue: Lender trying to repossess or disable the vehicle

Complaint:
To Whom It May Concern -- I am filing a formal complaint against Friendly Finance Corporation for what I feel are very unfair, unscrupulous, and unprofessional business practices. 

In XXXX XXXX 2016, I purchased a car at XXXX XXXX, which was financed through Friendly Finance Corporation. In the years and months that I have had an account with them, I have experienced several incidents where people who I have had contact with who work for Friendly Finance Corporation have been very rude, unprofessional, and lacking basic knowledge of how to provide good customer service. 

There have been several occasions where people who work with Friendly Finance have called me when I have been late with making my monthly payment, and spoke to me in a tone that was very assertive, threatening, and rude. The calls have been so disturbing to the point where one might think that this is a part of their standard business practices. 

The most recent incident occurred yesterday when a woman called me and basically told me that they were going to repossess my car because she told me that I was way behind on my payments, that I had written bad checks in an attempt to make a payment, and that I had incurred overdraft fees. When in fact, had she done further research and communicated with people who are familiar with my account, that Friendly Finance erroneously charged my checking account when I had made arrangements to make a payment via the Holiday Extension offer I had received, which was then voided as a result of this mistake made by whoever is in charge of monitoring my account, which got my account in poor standing in the first place. This call from this woman was very disturbing and troublesome. I then called back and spoke to a gentleman named XXXX, who has been very helpful and professional in the past, and got the misunderstanding straightened out thankfully. 

In addition, I feel that Friendly Finance is exploiting my credit rating -- which is not good right now -- and essentially ensuring that they make an excessive profit from my credit standing my 1 ) Only reporting my payment history to ONE credit bureau, and not all three, greatly limiting my chances to refinance and pay the true value of my vehicle. 2 ) Having a good payment/credit history with Friendly Finance virtually means I still  have no credit history if they 're only reporting to one credit bureau, and they know this, because most auto finance/refinance companies monitor XXXX and XXXX, not XXXX XXXX, who Friendly Finance reports to. 

I am a law-abiding, hard-working, self-respecting man who tries to do right by myself, and those I come in contact with. I am a Veteran of the military, and I have served my country honorably. I am currently dealing with some difficulties, but I know I will work my way through them. However, the last thing I need is an auto finance company that is exploiting my credit rating or lack thereof, being rude, inconsiderate, and unprofessional towards me, and simply lacking the ability to provide good customer service. I do n't deserve this, nor have I done anything to deserve this. 

I really feel that Friendly Finance Corporation owes me a formal apology for the difficulties they have given me, and will promise me that they will work to do better by me and their customers moving forward. It really is n't hard to get this done, but given their pattern of professional irresponsibility, I doubt that this will happen. 

I will be filling complaints with the local chapter of the Better Business Bureau, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

I simply want Friendly Finance Corporation to clean up their act, and do better. That 's not hard to do, and it should n't take me filing a complaint to prompt them to do so.

Company public response: Company believes the complaint is the result of a misunderstanding
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation