Consumer complaint received 2022-12-22
Company: TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORPORATION
State: CA
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease
Sub-issue: Billing problem

Complaint:
My car was repossessed in 2021 and I had the loan reinstated and the vehicle was returned to me. When it came time to make the first payment after the reinstatement, I discovered I no longer had access to the XXXX XXXX XXXX to make payments and I could not make payments over the phone or at a dealer either. I tried to contact the department I had worked with to have the car reinstated but they were closed at the time. A day or two later when they were reopened I spoke to someone who told me that I would have had to send my payment into a special department via XXXX mail only and with a cashiers check only otherwise I wouldnt be able to pay. He told me since I was 1 day late at the time that I was no longer able to make payments at all and that Toyota just wanted the car back now instead. He also said that reinstatement only is possible in a couple of states and that basically I shouldnt have had the right to do it in the first place which is why there app is not setup to allow accounts that have been charged off to regain access to their manner in which they previously paid since for almost everyone else this is impossible and reinstatement is relatively uncommon in the couple of states where it is allowed. He said people who default on their loans arent typically able to afford the large payment required to get their car back and even if they can XXXX would rather just sell the car now that it was charged off anyway and they no longer could charge interest on the loan. He said that even though it was reinstated it was already charged off on their books and that it was no longer the same loan terms. As he mentioned, I no longer would be paying interest on the loan just the principle so whats the incentive to allow me to pay even less than before? he implied. He didnt seem to care that I only missed payments as a result of loss of business directly related to the pandemic either. He also refused to send me any written documentation about the changes in the manner in which I would be required to pay the loan after it a reinstatement or the other ways the loan had changed after reinstatement ( like interest was no longer being charged ) and said that no documentation existed to that effect. No reasonable person would know these new special terms and requirements or have any reason to believe a reinstated loan would be under different terms especially without notice given. It seems like Toyota intentionally failed to give me notice about these facts so as to prevent me from making a timely first payment which then would allow them to repossess the car again. It seems especially likely considering that used cars, in particular XXXX  like my car ( a XXXX ), had unusually high resale value at the time due to the various factors like a computer chip shortage making new cars less available, the pandemic, record gas prices, record high used car sales prices, etc. that meant that Toyota would have more incentive to want to repossess the car instead of letting me resume making payments on the loan. I remember looking up the resale value of my car at the time and being surprised that it slightly exceeded the $ XXXX balance on the loan but selling my car wasnt an option and would have unfairly impacted me considering this is all the result of XXXX illegal scheme to prevent customers from paying and default reinstated loans. As a result of being prevented from being able to resume making payments, there is a collection account on my credit report for over {$22000.00} which has been preventing me from obtaining housing for months. I will have no other choice but to retain a consumer rights attorney to file a lawsuit for the harm that Toyota has caused me as a result of their scheme to prevent those whove been able to reinstate their loans from actually making a payment and therefore forcing the loan into permanent default since there is no longer an automatic legal right to reinstatement. I intend to seek declaratory relief to have to force Toyota to reinstate the loan and remove the wrongfully reported information from my credit report and the harm Ive suffered as a result of this information appearing on my credit report as it is the only thing preventing me from being to obtain housing.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation