Consumer complaint received 2023-05-25
Company: SANTANDER HOLDINGS USA, INC.
State: NC
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
At the end of XXXX XXXX, I received a letter in the mail from my car loan company about a delinquent account for my car loan through Santander Consumer USA stating a notice of right to cure default. I had until XXXX  to pay the outstanding balance of XXXX which included the late fees and other fees and expenses they added. My car payment is XXXX a month. My first initial thought was the amount they say I owed wasnt even correct. Obviously, if you add the 2 months, I was behind the total is more than the amount that was stated I owed. Which included the fees and other expenses. I thought I may have misunderstood or missed something, but I knew I was 2 months behind and submitted a payment of XXXX on XXXX. Unfortunately, not knowing that my bank account had been compromised, and took most of the money for the payment, putting my bank account XXXX Still not yet knowing that my account was compromised, the payment of my XXXX was returned to my account the very next day XXXX which then put my account back into the positive with the available amount of XXXX  That very same day I received a call from my bank informing me of the issue. Which immediately brought my attention to the car payment and hoping it goes through. All the funds taken from my account were credited back to my account on the same day, XXXX. I did ask my bank if they were able to tell if my payment for Santander went through or not and they were not able to confirm if it did. At this point, my account was back to my original balance of XXXX, which covered the car payment I hoped had gone through.  Showing in my bank statements I have provided show that the first initial payment did not go through and was returned as I stated above. then on XXXX Santander Consumer charged my account as a retry for the payment I initially sent in that got returned. They did it not only once but twice back-to-back on the same day. Which then set my bank account back into the negative with a balance of XXXX. on XXXX  a return of posted payment was sent back into my account making my account balance XXXX. The second charge that was made to my account twice in a row was never returned. Then on XXXX, they tried to again charge me for the initial payment of XXXX even though it had indeed gone through from one of the two charges they made to my account on XXXX So again, putting my account back into the negative until the payment was again returned to my account. This continued a few more times of charging and returning a payment that I had already made. Which also gives me a new late charge, a return fee for the returned payment (for each time they tried to continue to charge me even after the payment went through), and a fee for repossession of my vehicle. With all the transactions from them coming in and out of my account I had no idea if it was paid for or not by this point. So, I logged onto my account and checked the portal on their website of my transaction history. It showed each charge and each returned payment that did not go through. If you click on the question mark on their site if the total is shown in parenthesis, then that payment did not go through and is a returned payment. The last transaction on my account transaction history on their website showed a payment of $XXXX  did go through on the dates that matched my bank statements and were NOT in parenthesis. But the total amount owed didnt add up. Looking into the payments in the past made I realized that most of the payments I had made did not even go towards the principal amount and mostly on unknown expenses and fees. Not knowing that this is not a good thing I again thought that maybe I was just not understanding it correctly or something. But it showed paid, so I just brushed it off. I have an extremely busy life running a large business and being a husband and father to a small child. I have a hard time keeping up with things at times and unfortunately, my account does get compromised often. My bank can vouch for this. Regardless I will admit to not remembering to make payments every month but as soon as I receive notice of it being late I immediately make a payment on it and accept all the fees and expenses. Until I received yet another NOTICE OF RIGHT TO CURE DEFAULT on XXXX which also stated that I had until XXXX  to pay the outstanding balance. that you are in default under your contract because you are late in making your payment(s). Under North Carolina General Statutes Section 6-21.2, we may collect from you attorneys* fees in addition to the outstanding balance, which is AMOUNT NOW DUE (shown above), unless you pay the outstanding balance by LAST DAY FOR PAYMENT (shown above). Payment may be sent to us at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  TX XXXX.
Inder die not pay the AMOUNT NOW DUF by the LAST DAY FOR PAYMENT, we may exercise our rights
NOTE: The acceptance of these or other late payments does not waive our right to repossess the collateral or take other appropriate action if you fail to make future payments on time. You are required to make all
payments on time.

LAST DAY FOR PAYMENT:
XXXX  Description of Collateral:
ModelXXXX XXXX
Year: XXXX
MakeXXXX XXXX  Contract Date: XX/XX/XXXXAmount Now Due as ofXX/XX/XXXX:
Total Payments Due
Total Late Fees
Other Fees/Expenses
AMOUNT NOW DUE
XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  
Please write us at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  TX XXXX  of call us at XXXX XXXX, Monday
Please Friday XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  and Saturday XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Central Time if you have any
questions regarding this notice.
You are receiving this notice due to the legal requirements of the state where you originally signed the agreement. 

At this point, I am very confused and pretty upset. This is my wifes car, and we can have it repossessed. She does all the shopping and transporting for our child, and I travel all the time. This also has affected my credit score and we are trying to sell our home and buy a bigger home but must do some remodeling of the old house first. So not only is this issue going to make it difficult when we try to buy our new home but also sets us back from being able to get an equity loan to do the remodeling of our old home which is worth now XXXX  and us only owing XXXX. I believe you can imagine the overwhelmed angry feeling that took over me. I instantly hopped onto my Santander account to look and see if this was a possible mistake and just from the previous inquiry that I received late. But I was wrong. They are claiming that I never made that payment. But I did. My bank statements show I did, their own portal shows I did and my account missing XXXX says I did. That account isnt used for really anything but the car payment and a few other things. So, you can easily tell when a large amount like that is no longer there. When I called to ask about this issue the lady was extremely rude and pretty much called me a liar. When I tried to explain everything in detail and how I am looking at their online portal of my account that shows the payment did go through and where did the XXXX in my bank account go then, she said I see what you are saying but look at the total amount owed. It shows you didnt make a payment. Which, it did show I made a payment but instead of the principal amount owed on the loan lowering XXXX  it added XXXX, raising the total amount owed after the payment was made. She literally argued with me when I asked how that even made any logical sense and told me that if I wanted to prove this then I would have to get them my bank statements to prove it. So, I said that is fine, what is the email I can send it to, I will send them right now. She literally chuckled and said oh we dont do email yet. You must go print them out and fax them to us or mail them. By now Im thinking it is now 65 days delinquent and they are coming to take the car. This is XXXX I can almost guarantee that not your average everyday person or family has a fax machine they can just use. I bit my lip and just said OK whats the fax number ill try to find a place that will fax it to me. She told me the number and said I had to get my bank to print it off and that they would then fax it to them for me. Then cut me off and proceeded to say, So XXXX XXXX  can I ask what your intentions are now after this ongoing conversation we have had today and the information I have provided, I asked what she was asking, and she said Well are you going to make this payment or not. Mind blown I just hung up the phone before I said something I regretted. Moving on from that I left to get to the bank.  By the time I made it to the nearest bank, they were closed. So, I drove 35 min back home to sit and wait to try again tomorrow. The next day I get up and go to the bank for them to tell me they cant do that for me. They do not fax things and would have to find another way to do so. An hour and forty minutes later and a half tank of gas from all of this ridiculous nonsense I find a place to fax it for me for XXXX Days go by and its now today XXXX  and I have yet to hear a response from Santander about the bank statements and the proof of the payment I made. So, I reached out to them again. This time by, funny thing, email. Then I finally received an email back from them with absolutely nothing but my transaction history from my account. Which I had already sent to them. But theirs was one small difference. The second charge of that payment went through and was not put back into my account. Nothing else. Just that. Nothing telling me what they believed happened or explaining it to me or even a rude remark saying just pay your bill. Now I am extremely furious. I have never in my life dealt with a company like this. Completely unprofessional and unpleasant in all aspects. So, I got online and researched Santander consumer usa complaints and reviews. My jaw dropped when I saw the one-star rating and all the terrible stories of the exact same thing happening to so many others, some worse than mine. And one only a few days after my issue began. Then the consumer protection bureau popped up with recommendations on what I should do. Going through the website and learning more about what CPB does I stumbled upon File No. XXXX under the consumer complaint database. I read all 31 pages of it, and I could not believe what I had just read. I was not the only one dealing with this issue and it has been an ongoing issue for a while now. Now Im stressed out and do not know what to do or what will happen or if this isnt the first time this has happened with them because there have been a few things that caught my attention but again my busy life it was the last thing I was worried about nor thought was even possible to happen. So here I am not knowing what to do and asking for help and telling you my side of the story. I have all the bank statements I can provide along with the original transaction history I sent to them before they sent me one back. I have downloaded all the proof in so many different aspects on different platforms to show that I did make this payment. Please help me or tell me what I should do. Or even tell me that Im wrong and missing something. I just need to know the answers and explain why this has happened and to take back the marks on my credit if thats possible and my payments updated and make sure this hasnt happened in the past already.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation