Consumer complaint received 2021-02-12
Company: Populus Financial Group, Inc. (F/K/A Ace Cash Express)
State: CA
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Payday loan
Issue: Money was taken from your bank account on the wrong day or for the wrong amount

Complaint:
I've dealt with this co. for some time, never had any issues unless it's in their stores. The online dept. is usually really good. I do my payday loan on line because I don't like the lengthy, slow moving lines, or the approval process in the stores, & they usually have only 1 person working & 5+ people in line. You could be in there past an hour! What a waste of everyone 's time & it's poor quality customer service. It's not fair to their customers so I discontinued doing them in store. I do them on line because they're very flexible in the sense I can borrower on line, then go to the store to pick up the cash same day. It's really very hassle free. Takes maybe 5 minutes to do compared to the 2 hours in store. Their stores are not particularly close but some are better than others. I've been to a few & can tell you I only like the 1 on State College so far. I have been calling Ace to get extensions on my payday loans, because they put it on my pay day or before which is a huge inconvenience for me. This time it was before due to the holiday on XX/XX/XXXX & banks being closed. I rarely remember holidays unless I see closure signs for them. Because I don't get paid on XX/XX/XXXX I called on XXXX & XXXX XXXX who I get most of the time when I call & never ever had a problem with him or any of the others there. They're always very nice & extremely helpful. I like doing business with them. I don't like having that outstanding loan because it's true what they say, payday loans are a trap & hard to get out of. I pride myself in paying them timely & never being a problem customer. My plan was to figure out how to pay it off in the next month or 2 but taking that hit can be hard because you still end up short on bills. So it's not easy to pay off. Anyway, I called to request the extension they allot, I believe it's 5 days from the original due date. XXXX asked if the XXXX would be fine, I said yep that was perfect & he said it was done & approved. It's really a 1-2 minute call & very problem free. I never thought about it again because like I said XXXX has done this for me many times. I get the extension, it gives me time to get to the bank, then to the store of my choice to pay off the loan, then I go home, reborrow, then go back to the store to pick up the cash. Seems complicated but for me it works. If you pay on line the transaction sits on my bank account for up to 5 days before it clears. I hate that. If I let them do an ACH it does the same but then I can't borrow again for 5 days. I can't afford to do that so that's why I do it the way it's easiest & more convenient for me. They know me in the store now & are always courteous. Late last night I signed into my email to retrieve a phone number for our security co. at my complex that the manager gave me for noise complaints. I had a noisy neighbor & needed to call. That's when I saw the email from Ace thanking me for my payment. They only send those when they do an automatic ACH if you haven't paid the loan before the due date. Hence the reason I do the extensions to avoid the ACH because of the stupid 5 day rule & how it affects my budget. After I dealt with the noise problem I read the email & was livid! I had exactly {$0.00} in my bank account when they put through that ACH this XXXX I'm now {$290.00} over drawn! I had to file a dispute with the bank today, because that transaction will automatically generate a {$35.00} insufficient funds fee that I can't afford to pay! I got the bank to file the dispute after I explained what the transaction was. Prior to calling the bank I called Ace & asked XXXX to transfer me to a manager. I spoke to XXXX. I explained the situation to him & requested they reverse the transaction to honor my original request with XXXX. He said the notes XXXX put in the system said XXXX offered me an extension but I never confirmed it! WHAT???!!!! XXXX started to get upset with me & threatened to end the call if I didn't contain myself! I dared him to hang up on me & told him I'd be filing this complaint. He said it was my right & I agreed! I don't think people really understand the ramifications of their encouraging customers to file complaints against them. The complaints don't go to them, they go to high ups in the co. & make them look bad! I asked him if XXXX logged in that I made the call to Ace or he had reason to call me on that day? He said it showed I called! OK so duh! Why would I call, request an extension, then turn around & say I don't want it if I called to request it, to keep my account off the over draft????!!!! That didn't make 1 ounce of sense & XXXX couldn't make it make any either! I just got more upset the more he tried to cover his & XXXX ' XXXX. He continued to tell me what he " can't '' do rather than doing what skilled managers do : say let me review the call, then speak to XXXX, then I'll call you back with a solution! That's what REAL trained supervisors do! Every co. is into promoting people that have zero people skills & minus zero ability to handle an irate customer or lacks managerial experience. Not everyone is cut out to be a manager just because they think that's what they want to do! The ones in many companies today are completely inept! I had every right to be angry & to demand a solution since the error is Ace 's! Instead XXXX did what most people now days do, not sure if it's a generational thing but he tried to deflect the whole situation back on me, basically trying to say I was so XXXX or worse yet that maybe I was XXXX  or XXXX on XXXX, to the point I picked up the phone, made a call to them to request something then changed my mind about it while on the phone, & later forgot I made the call! Why would I do that if I don't want my account to be on the over draft, can't afford to pay the fee & knew I wasn't getting paid on the XXXX?! How much sense does that make & I asked him the same question. He agreed it didn't make any sense & that's why I got angry. I get that XXXX wanted to try to figure out what happened first, but you don't try to put something back on the customer by blaming, or accusing them of something that didn't happen prior to having the facts, & the lack of ability of modern day unskilled managers to not understand what " taking accountability '' means is also astounding. I work in the banking industry, we are drug tested, finger printed & back ground checked, I fully understand the operations side of a bank. What I don't like is the requirement of Ace to do ACH transactions the day before the due date ( see the email ) then debit my account the next day. I hate the ACH transactions for a reason, that's why I rarely allow them to happen. I also prefer to go to the store to pay it off so I don't have a lingering transaction sitting on my account waiting 5 days to clear. I like to balance my account daily so I keep a close eye on it for such problems like this, when they occur I can jump on getting it resolved. It's rare this happens. This was an Ace error & they need to fix it ASAP! Because of their bumbling mistake my account is now going to be on the over draft over a long holiday weekend, until I get paid next week & can clear it or the bank reverses the item back to Ace. Typically it takes the bank almost 10 days to resolve these types of issues, meanwhile my account remains over drawn & there's an over draft fee to consider who gets to eat it! I demanded XXXX review the call, speak to XXXX & call me back with a resolution not his " I can't '' excuses! He said he would but I'm guessing he's lying about that & won't bother to admit they made a major flub up! He's thinking it won't go any further & that my threat to complain was idle! WRONG! It's real! What this does is bring distrust toward them from me & I'm fairly certain I won't continue doing business with them after this. I'm horrified that they would do something this irresponsible. They're used to dealing with people who are not very high on the IQ charts, are total losers, get high or drink to excess & don't have their act together. I'm not one of them! What angered me the most was XXXX attempting to deflect this back to me which seems like I said, to be a serious generational defect with younger generations today. It's easier for them to blame others rather than take responsibility for anything. Hence the reason we have all of this chaos in our country today! I'm not from those generations & was raised to take responsibility for my actions. If this was my fault I wouldn't bother with the complaint or even to call Ace. But since it wasn't & I feel Ace WON'T attempt to resolve it, apologize nor rectify it, that's why I'm filing this complaint. I want to make sure they don't ever do this to another person again! I can accept when someone makes mistakes, we're all human, but when you try to deflect & say too bad so sad customer just deal with it, that's where I draw the line at accepting mistakes! When we hung up there was no offer of resolution to the problem. I have a feeling Ace does this a lot but most people are unaware of how to complain. Many of these types of companies discontinued doing installment loans in CA because the law changed requiring them to lower the greedy high interest rates charged on those loans. Many of these companies discontinued doing them in CA because their greed won't allow them to lower the interest, that's how they make their money & keep you indebted to them for years. It's a major rip off & scam, so I'm glad CA stopped it. The next loans to be banned from CA are payday loans for pretty much this very reason! If Ace & other companies like them don't think that banks complain to the appropriate authorities when customers like me call with a problem like this, they'd best think again. Eventually these types of loans will be outlawed in CA too & many of the Western states. There are legislatures that have been working on bills for some time to get rid of predatory lenders. Can Ace afford to lose that business too? I'm guessing no! What they need to do is stop using COVID as an excuse & get back to the office, masks or no masks so the service level goes back to what it was before. Right now it's just not that great & hold times are way too long some times. I'm sick of businesses using COVID as the excuse for poor quality service. I bet if XXXX was in the office he wouldn't have made a XXXX  error like this! Ace needs to rectify this ASAP! If nothing else they need to send me a letter apologizing so I can close that dispute with the bank & they'll understand what really happened. I maintain that there's no way I would pick up a phone to call Ace requesting an extension, then say I don't need or want it! That makes no logical sense to anyone that has common sense! I'm very angry with them & they need to rectify this or I will take my complaints to much higher government sources including the Dept. of Finance who regulates their business activities in CA. I suggest they not dismiss this or my level of anger. I'm not letting them get away with this!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation