Consumer complaint received 2022-01-28
Company: NISSAN MOTOR ACCEPTANCE COMPANY LLC
State: CA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
In late XXXX of XXXX I purchased a new XXXX XXXX with dealer financing. The dealership told me my first payment was not due until XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I set up auto pay through the Nissan website with payments in the amount of {$400.00} to be withdrawn every month on the XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, my bank account had a auto withdrawal from Nissan in the amount of {$400.00}. This continued every single month, on or about the XXXX of each month. At no time did Nissan contact me to tell me there was an issue with payment. When I logged into my account with Nissan and checked " transaction history '' it showed timely payments each and every month. Until XXXX when there was a reverse because of insufficient funds. My preferred method of contact has been listed as my email and my email is correct. I never received a letter or email from Nissan at any point until XX/XX/XXXX. On this date I opened a letter and was shocked to see they were going to try to repossess because the account was over due in the amount of approximately {$1200.00}. I could not figure out what this was for but I immediately went onto Nissan and made the payment. It was deducted from my bank account. I talked to a person through the XXXX XXXX who told me it was for late payments. She kept saying " check your transaction history '' and I kept telling her the transaction history shows nothing but on time payments ( until XX/XX/XXXX ). 
I then learned that my credit report shows late payments ( 30 days ) for XXXX, XXXX, XXXX and XXXX. I contacted Nissan again and explained that my bank statements showed timely payments and that Nissan 's own transaction history also showed timely payments. There were no messages from Nissan in the online messaging portal that said differently. The chat person told me that it did not matter what my statements said, and if I wanted to dispute I could send a letter or get in touch with the credit agencies. I attempted to call Nissan multiple times during this period and, unless you wanted to use the automated system ( which would not help ), it said " we are too busy '' and would hang up on you. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I tried calling Nissan again. After a lengthy time attempting to reach a human, I finally found one. I explained the situation to the representative. This XX/XX/XXXX when she informed me that Nissan was reporting late payments because I never made a XX/XX/XXXX payment. Again, the dealership told me XXXX was when payments were to start. However, because there was no XXXX payment, they were applying each subsequent payment to the month before. Thus, XXXX 's payment was put on XXXX -- and then given a " 30 day late '' ping. For the last several months, Nissan has been reporting me as over 30 days late because they are applying the current payment to the previous month. However, at no time did Nissan contact me to let me know this is what was happening. My bank showed a deduction, the Nissan website showed timely payments.

What Nissan is saying does not make sense because they are not consistently applying it to the month before. For instance, credit report shows not problem for XX/XX/XXXX. But if they applied the XXXX payment to XXXX, XXXX should show up as 30 days late ( by their alleged procedures ). The same thing happened in XXXX. 
When I spoke with Nissan yesterday, they confirmed that had I not gotten in touch with someone, they would have continued to report me as 30 days late each month because of their procedure of applying the current month payment to the previous month ( thereby always making me 30 days late ).

Nissan clearly had a way to contact me as shown by the XX/XX/XXXX letter. They also knew that my contact preference was email. The representative told me that multiple phone calls had been placed to me which I explained I had never received. Today when I went back into Nissan I see that they have had my phone number one off ( ending in XXXX instead of XXXX ). Nissan could have emailed. They could have sent me a letter. They could have sent me a message through the loan portal. They did none of this -- I believe in an attempt to wrack up late fees and charges. 
My account is up to date but my credit is significantly impacted by the four late charges posted there. I accept that XXXX was late -- the automatic withdraw did not happen for some reason. But I had no way of knowing that they were calling XXXX and XXXX late because of how they apply payments. And XXXX was payed on XX/XX/XXXX which is a full week before 30 days would appear ( XX/XX/XXXX ). Please help. I have tried everything with Nissan and they are refusing to assist me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation