Consumer complaint received 2020-04-10
Company: KEYCORP
State: NY
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
Last XXXX I bought a new car and the car dealership chose Key Bank as my lender. Since then it's been a lot of hoops just to make payments. I pay all of my other bills on time and with no difficulty. At no point with my difficulties with making this car payment has it been the result of a lack of funds or my willingness to pay in full and on time. 

It started with the first payment : I knew key bank was my lender and I had enough information to sign up for an online account. There I saw the total I owed and across the top of he screen it said " There are no scheduled Payments or Transfers, '' but nothing else. There was no indication on any of the screens what my minimum payment was or its due date. This remains true to this day for their online bill pay set-up. The only way to find this essential information is to click on statements, pull up a pdf of the statement and there you can find it. I know that some loans have a grace period of about a month to establish their first payment, so I waited for an alert via email or some type of change to their screen to let me know my bill was due. I would check weekly. Eventually I received an email saying that I was late and there was a late payment. I called immediately and paid and started inquiring about how to simplify the process and/or set up auto payments. 

Through their site, they would not let me set up my checking account to make payments - auto or otherwise. Through many phone calls I was eventually told that the only way to set it up was to go into the branch, so I did that, taking time off of work to go. I met with someone and filled out all the paperwork to have auto payments happen and would check my account regularly to see if the payment went through - it never did. I called online banking to find out that it was not set up and no record was known of my efforts at the branch. I went back to the bank branch and was told, " oh, he is new and filled it out wrong, I'll fix it.. '' so more paperwork was filled out and I went back to checking to see if it would go through - it never did. Upon one of my many phone calls to them they said there is no record of me ever filling out paperwork - again. 
So, at this point it seems clear that filling out paperwork at the branch doesn't work. They won't allow me to register my bank account on their site for payment. My bank is XXXX XXXX  and their site indicates they do work with them though I'm not sure why my specific accounts won't register and I've never been given a clear reason - though last phone call a " tech guy '' said " it's because you tried in the past and didn't work. '' I have no idea what to make of that. 

At this point, my only way to make my car payment is to call, which of course, is awful. I'm currently waiting on hold. Today is XX/XX/2020 and it's been made clear that it's because of covid but every time I have called it's been a pretty long wait. My first attempt took 35 minutes and I expressed my frustration and then the phone went silent - I was hung up on. Now I'm waiting again - 22 minutes now - and this is the only way I can make my payment each month. 

What's worse is that they tell me " oh, you only owe {$340.00} '' so that's what I pay but I just looked at " my transactions '' and I have been charged XXXX  times for late fees at the cost of {$16.00}. This is what made me upset on my previous call because I was looking at my bill which showed that my total due was {$680.00} and was told I only owed {$340.00} - which I now understand would land me with yet another late fee. 

I just, finally, successfully made my full payment. They again said I only owe the {$340.00} amount and I said, " no, I owe {$680.00} and if I don't pay that full amount I will get hit with a late payment, is that correct? '' they responded, " well, yes. '' They're misleading me into paying an amount that doesn't get me current so that they can charge me a late payment. I have not checked my credit report but if this hurts my otherwise excellent credit, I will be furious. 

My plan for a solution to this was to refinance through my regular bank, XXXX, but I don't think that's possible if I'm temporarily unemployed due to Covid. My only option is to call each month and wait for a half hour to an hour to make a payment over the phone. Every bit of this experience has been illogical and maddening. A financial institution as large and longstanding as Key Bank has to know how to do things well and clearly has chosen not to. It makes me feel that it's an intentional way to charge customers late fees. It shouldn't be difficult to pay bills.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation