Consumer complaint received 2020-01-27
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: CA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
{ NOTE : Not knowing your websites documentation box capacity, Im sharing with you that this was 6 pages as I worked on it in MSWord. So you will know you have it all, I put === THE END === at the very end of the document. If you dont see XXXX THE END === you do not have my total document. If that is the case, please let me know what I must do to get the whole document to you so this matter does not get any worse. Thank you. } During the second quarter of XXXX, I shopped for and bought a XXXX XXXX XXXX  XXXX from XXXX XXXX. It was my wish to finance the car through XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in my hometown of XXXX, NE, with which I have a 50+ year relationship. They gave me an almost certain verbal approval but said they required 10-14 days to process the loan and get the money to XXXX. XXXX  said they could not and would not hold the car that long but said they absolutely, positively could secure my financing. I chose this alternative as the car was one I really liked and wanted. I filled out XXXX   necessary paperwork and got approved by several lenders and with XXXX XXXX assistance picked the one that seemed to be most favorable. XXXX   delivered the car on XXXX when I also signed a whole bunch of documents. XXXX  told me the finance company would be in contact with me in the future to provide me with a welcoming kit, the sales contract, a payment book, etc. so as to begin the relationship. This all seemed standard, acceptable procedure to me, as it had been many years since I had financed a car. After about a month, I called XXXX  and asked why I had not heard from the finance company. I was told to calm down and be patient. XXXX  said you have the car and they will be in contact because theyll want their money. I called one other time a few weeks later with the same inquire and was told the same thing. I also asked XXXX  if they could possibly send me a copy of the sales contract. They said they had done so already but would send it again. As unprofessional and flakey as that had been throughout the whole selling process, this did not raise any red flags to me. On or about XX/XX/XXXX, I was contacted by a woman who identified herself as XXXX XXXX with Ally Financial. This was my first Ally contact of any type. She started out with a stark attitude treating me as if I was an irresponsible, low-life, credit deadbeat. She demanded to know why I was not making payments on my loan. I relayed all XXXX  had told me and that I had received nothing from any finance company to date. She countered saying that was not possible, as Ally had been billing me. I repeated that I had received nothing from any finance company and asked where have you been sending what youre saying youve sent? I discovered then and there for the very first time Ally was using a WRONG address and that wrong address had been given to them by XXXX  -- not me! XXXX rectified to the correct address. I asked if ALL previously mailed correspondence could be re-mailed. XXXX said she would try, but she was not sure if it would be possible. Really? To me, this was quite unprofessional consider this situation had not been caused by me. We talked further and XXXX agreed it definitely would be acceptable to Ally for me make payments of {$320.00} ( my required payment is {$310.00}?? ) from my next 3 paychecks ( to my best recollection of exact dates ) on XX/XX/XXXX to cover the XXXX payment, XX/XX/XXXX to cover the XXXX payment and XX/XX/XXXX to cover my XXXX payment due XX/XX/XXXX. This is exactly what I did! During this same conversation with XXXX, I point-blank asked if this mistake caused by XXXX, which was absolutely no fault of mine in that I had no way of knowing Ally had been given the wrong address, would impact my credit bureau reports. She assured me it would not considering the circumstances. By the time we ended the call, XXXX had abandoned her affronting collection approach and had become very nicely civil in tone. From then on, I made payments on time until XX/XX/XXXX. Several months after my call with XXXX, my credit bureau alerting service notified me via email that I had two 30 day lates, which amounted to being 60 days late scored against me on all three of my credit bureaus, which sadly made what XXXX had told me not true! When I called to inquire about this with customer service, I was meant with snarky sass and told, I was late and Ally was correct. When the call ended I was in major frustration and total disbelief than any company would be so blatantly unprofessional as to negatively mark someone for something that they knew full well was completely out of their knowledge or control. I called customer service 4 or 5 other times and continued to seek to have those inappropriate, unfair, unjust, egregious marks removed from my credit bureau reports. Each time I had to try and work through an unbelievably difficult English language barrier with people who spoke the language very poorly and seemed to fully lack the capability to sufficiently understand the syntax of what I was trying to explain. One of the agents said no one in customer service could help and the only way there might be a remote chance of any assistance would be to email some other ( I think she said back-office ) department that might give consideration to looking into this matter. When I asked for that email address or a telephone number, I was told neither one was something Ally ever shared but she said she would be sending an email on my behalf. On one of the subsequent tries, in that I had grown tired of being stonewalled, I finally decided to ask to speak to a supervisor and I was told they could not help me because I had been late and ended that call without ever giving me any time to provide the reason I was asking for some fair, professional treatment. After demanding to speak to a supervisor on a follow-up call, I learned I was again blatantly lied to and that no email had ever been sent! This supervisor promised he would take care of sending the details but I would have to be patient as it could take several months to get an answer. Several months, really ; just what kind of pathetic customer service is that if not just plain harassment? I asked if there was only just one person in that department and was told no, thats just how long it takes. I explained my medical loan need for a swifter reply and was further belittled with, sorry. I had been in the process of getting a loan for serious personal medical reasons and I had been approved, however, during the banks final pre-funding loan review the credit report negatives showed up on my bureau reports and my loan was table until such time as I could get the negatives cleared and removed. Sometime thereafter I received a curt letter from Ally saying their review found their actions extremely accurate and they would be making no adjustments! How is that not other than deliberate, abusive harassment? Needless to say, because of my health condition and my desire to keep living life as the most important thing to me, I tried again to get Ally to both understand and cooperate and remove the grossly unjust credit bureau marks. Again with the help of yet another supervisor, a resubmission was done and the same letter was sent again weeks later. In the meantime, my bureau alert service informed me that one of the 30-day lates had been removed. What a disgusting unprofessional slap in the face insult. How could I be not late for just one month when there were originally two months when XXXX XXXX made initial contact with me? To this day, I have never received the contract or any of the initially mailed introductory paperwork as several times promised more deception. To me, Ally has been a company that projects hate where most others provide positive, caring customer service that shows compassionate cooperation in such trivial clerical matters. 

In early XX/XX/XXXX, I got a call from my personal bank, XXXX, inquiring about a just made $ 600+ charge, which we quickly concluded was a fraud and not mine. The bank, for mine and their mutual defense and protection, froze my account for a week to stop any additional fraud hits, which I was told was a very standard banking operating procedure. Since XXXX, I have been a repeat target of identity theft fraud in the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and I am very sensitive to the XXXX and expense it brings into ones life. Having banked with XXXX  since XXXX, I trust and believe them as they have always worked positively in my best interest. The XXXX  agent NEVER mentioned to me that any other payments which I might have in process would also not be honored. They included my electric bill, my gas bill, my XXXX XXXX bill, two VISA payments and my payment to Ally made on XX/XX/XXXX. In that I was on record with XXXX  for a payment of {$320.00} prior to the XXXX day of each month to Ally I had absolutely no reason to even consider thinking my Ally payment or any of my other regular, on-record payments in process with XXXX would not clear. As soon as I realized the magnitude of this situation, I immediately called XXXX to notify them I would be making extra, out-of-sequence payments to Ally and the others so as to show good faith to Ally and my other accounts during the fraud matter and to catch up as quickly as possible. Fraud is XXXX and no one likes being a victim but it sadly is an ongoing condition attacking all banking far too often and I erroneously had thought Ally would be much more knowledgeable and far more understanding then they have been. On XX/XX/XXXX I made another {$320.00} payment, the maximum payment amount on record with XXXX. A week or so thereafter I noticed none of the Ally payments had not while all my others had. Ally is slower than any other online payments I make each month in doing their payment processing. After all, Ally has done to me, which I personally feel is very unethical and unfair, I can not help but think they might slow payment processing so as to gain the ability to charge the maximum amount of interest possible. I called XXXX  and asked rather pointedly why in the XXXX they were returning my payments. They stated they were not. I then asked what was going on. The fraud agent said he could only speculate. One thing he mentioned was a computer spike that might have altered the data within the Ally system, which he said was the most frequent reason he had encountered during his tenure with XXXX, so as to make them not process correctly. As a related aside, Ally has one of the most difficult, confusing, convoluted websites of any I have ever used or have had to try and figure out how to navigate so as to be a responsible on-time borrower. While talking with Ally personnel who are supposedly designated as website trained for client assistance is, for the most part, a waste of time. Another thing the fraud department man mentioned was that some penny-pinching finance companies are known to freeze payment accounts solely because they dont want to pay bouncing fees thereby causing their patrons payment not to post. I questioned him in that I was not fully capable of comprehending why any entity that needs and wants to collect money from their accounts would do something so exceeding counterproductive and stupid so as to get into their own way and cause themselves extra work. He said he was able to see payment attempts but could provide no reasons and encouraged me to repeat my payments to show good faith and keep myself from being put into a more negative light. I did just that on XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX and the same thing happened again! When I called XXXX  again another agent also said often times financial institutions unscrupulously will freeze customer payment accounts, which she said XXXX never does, solely to be able to charge more interest, penalties and late fees as an additional revenue source. When I told her I had learned I was marked with more credit bureau late payments dings, she said, thats part of their game. When I asked her if Ally was allowed to call former and current employers, relatives or friends as they had done her reply was, oh my god. She said all I could do was ask for the lock to be lifted and hope they did so, and then make the payments again, in that having my grandfathered free ( absolutely ) no-frills checking account which does not have many features of which online banking is an unavailable one. Additionally, I no longer have and have not written any actual paper checks for decades. Furthermore, I had never in my life heard of any financial institution being stupid enough or mean enough to unprofessionally block methods of payment when their goal is to be paid! 

Fully frustrated and disgruntled with the abusive, negative customer service ( my personal evaluation ) up to this point in time, I decided to try to see if anything in the realm of real customer service might come from using the online chat, which is a gross misnomer in that it is a typing exercise. I was on my computer for > 2 hours. Very little was accomplished other to have the Ally typer accuse me of changing my account number really you just cant make up this stuff. I proceeded to type to him that when I made my very first payments I properly loaded my bank account information correctly and all of my subsequent payments posted properly until my bank suspended all my payments solely do to the outside fraud attack. The Ally typer proceeded to insinuate I had changed my account number considering I had shared XXXX with him and he had typed to me he was looking at XXXX. I made it clear to him I did not appreciate him typing I had deliberately done something to intentionally cause myself all this grief, frustration or stress! Come on really? I then typed him if he could tell me what checking account number was at that time loaded into my Ally pay module and he said he could not. He typed, I could clearly see that on my account. I then typed him as to how I could do that because in all the time Ive been using the misfit website there was no time I saw any way to verify my checking account information input. I typed him why my account had been locked out of use in the first place and he typed something illogical as a reply. I then typed, how do we solve this problem? He typed nothing of substance but again went out of his was to insinuate it was all of my doing. I typed, he was abjectly wrong! When I carefully go to input my checking account information and very carefully making sure it is correct, the Ally website gives me an error message that reads an account with this routing number and checking account number has been locked out! He again typed noting which could be concluded as an intelligent reply. I also typed to him if my account had been XXXX as he so disgustingly tried to insinuate, there would be no way the right checking account information with XXXX would be locked out as it would be brand new to the Ally system. One last time I typed two questions : 1 ) Why was my checking account locked out in the first place after I had talked to numerous Ally people a few of which were totally aware of the whole situation? 2 ) Why does Ally deliberately and now seemingly intentionally doing everything in their power to escalate this convoluted situation even further? When what was typed back was void of intelligent, logical answers, I decided it was time to end my chat with this poorly programmed tree stump. 

I finally got the attention of their presidential escalation department ( I think that is what they call it ) and was called by one of the most affronting, unprofessional, rude individuals I have encountered in my life. Ally could not train an individual to be a worse representation of pathetic customer service or public relations. She is incapable of shutting up and stopping from interrupting long enough for someone to detail the entire subsequent problem. She was more intent on spewing rules and procedures and being threatening and condescending. The manner in which she presented herself caused me to believe she had already made a decision and her only remaining task was to cram it down my throat. When I was finally able to squeeze in a few questions, I got abrupt answers. I asked if she thought she and Ally were even close to being fair and I got more verbal flack. When I asked why my account was locked, she avoided any logical answer, just as the typer had, beyond again spewing procedure and then insinuated it all of my doing. I was on the phone with this woman for 20+ minutes and the whole ordeal was a disgusting harassment when I had hoped after the initial introduction that Ally FINALLY might be stepping up to the plate to do something that just might be fair and just. This women, who only would identify herself as XXXX  ( sp? ) at extension XXXX, which by the way did not work when I tried to call her back to find out why she had not called me at XXXX XXXX  the next day as she had voluntarily promised she most definitely would and for which I took the time ( and money ) off from work to respectfully honor her supposed return call with the continued hope of finally receiving some fair justice in both of these credit bureau situations caused by Ally. When I called the phone number she gave me the second time a few minutes later after realizing I had been given a wrong extension, I spoke with and worked with a fine, knowledge, compassionate, professional gentleman named XXXX at extension XXXX, who was so apologetic for the previous day. He said he would be more than happy to try and help me and he was so great in all of his attempts and again apologized. He was not sure if he was going to be able to take over the case or not I could only hope and pray, as I have no desire to ever speak to the previous woman ever again. Finally, to top all of this off, the next day at about XXXX XXXX  she had the city police department come to my home, pound on my front door and interrogate and embarrass me like a common criminal in front of all of my neighbors for over half an hour. Fortunately for me, I was able to cajole them into not taking me to the police station with them which would have made this whole horrible situation worse and further compound my life by causing me to be a no-call-no-show at work! At the end of the ordeal, one of the officers explained to me that according to the law they are required to do what they did even if they clearly and completely feel they are being used as a deliberate form of harassment or retaliation, which he said happens far too often, in a civil dispute just to avoid their liability for those times that might have a real significant substance. Ally is also sending me ugly, severely threating letters and with them, they are treating me like I am a calculated criminal individual who is trying to defraud them when all the while everything that has happened has NOT been any fault of mine whatsoever and I have very diligently and have deliberately continued to sustain my desire to clearly show I want to make all payments and get this matter completely resolved. I did not provide the wrong address nor did I ask to have my ONLY FORM OF PAYMENT locked so I would look like I was someone who did not care and was, in fact, the deadbeat Ally is seemingly trying to set me up to look like I am with their unorthodox, unexplainable, deceptive, manipulative practices and processes. 

What I would like, if you fine people at Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can make it happen, is to have my XXXX account UNLOCKED within the Ally online payment portal so I can the very next 4 days thereafter make payments each day of {$320.00} so as to bring my account current, if you can make it happen before XX/XX/XXXX, my XXXX due date. I would also love to have all of the lates removed from the Ally sections of my credit bureau reports so I can get the loan processed to be able to move forward with my personal health crisis and substantially lengthen the estimated amount of time I have left to live. And finally, I would like all penalties, late fees and extra interest subtracted from my Ally account. And If I have to continue dealing with Ally to accurately, finally resolve this matter, I would really like to do so with XXXX as I really do not want any more contact with the other woman for the rest of my life. I look forward with great anticipation to learning what you might be able to do to resolve this matter at your earliest possible convenience so they do not escalate this matter to the point of repossessing my car. The people who referred me to your agency spoke very highly of your effectiveness, your promptness and your ability to solve even the most complex problems in a favorable manner for the complainant ; one person even said you might be the most efficient bureau in the federal government. 
=== THE END ===

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation