Consumer complaint received 2018-01-13
Company: Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc.
State: NJ
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Struggling to pay your loan
Sub-issue: Loan balance remaining after the vehicle is repossessed and sold

Complaint:
Dear Sir/Madam : I am in serious need of help/advice regarding my auto loan with Santander Concumer USA and believe I am a victim of USURY - auto loan unfair lending practices.

While I have been going through a relentless battle to keep my car from being repossesed by Santander Consumer, I ultimately lost my battle on XX/XX/XXXX wgen they repossed the car out of my driveway in the middle of the night. Now they are attempting to collect an exuberant amount of money that they say I owe them. You will see by the information below that I have already paid they an enormous amount of money, almost 3/4 of the price I purchased it for and now, after the repossession and sale of the car, they say I still owe them a little more than the original price I paid for the car.

Below is my story, I sincerely hope you can help me, or refer me to someone who can.

I bought a car while living in Florida in XX/XX/XXXX. I had really bad credit, and had only had a consistent job for a couple months, and was living in the homeless shelter system for just about two years -- but the Auto Dealer at XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, FL ) assured me that he could get me a loan with a down payment - even though everyone else had turned me down. He obtained the loan through Santander Consumer USA. He never checked my work history, or my residence history and I drove out of the lot with the car.

At the time I had no idea what type of contract I was signing, but being so desperate and needing a car, I trusted that the auto dealer was doing the right thing for me. As it turned out, that was not the case, and I am now paying a serious price for that unwarranted trust.

I had been paying for this loan since XX/XX/XXXX, and just about every payment I was able to make was going to Interest. I got behind in payments on and off, because I really could not afford the car, because I had been in and out of jobs and barely surviving. And Santander misled me in believing the extensions they gave me would help me -- when in reality it was just another bad tactic and way for Santander to abuse my hardship to their advantage by attempting to collect more interest from me.

To date, here is the status ( see below ).

Bought Car for ( amount financed ) : {$14000.00} Interest Rate : 17.16 % Monthly payment amount : {$330.00} Total Payments made to date : {$9600.00} Payments went to Interest : {$7800.00} Payments went to Principle : {$1700.00} Before repossession they say I still owed on the car : {$14000.00} After repossession and sale of car, they say I now still owe : XXXX - ( per letter dated XX/XX/XXXX from them ) At this rate, there is just no way I could ever pay that -- and even if I did, I will then have paid over double what they sold the car to me at -- and still have no car to show for it.

Do I have any recourse - please tell me I do?

I truly appreciate any advise or referral that you can offer me in trying to resolve this.

Thank you,

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation