Consumer complaint received 2021-09-27
Company: Monterey Financial Services LLC
State: OR
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Other debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened or suggested your credit would be damaged

Complaint:
With life changes we decided to negotiate an exit of our contract with Monterey Financial Services on multiple occasions but we're not given proper feedback and/or options to how to proceed. To begin, my wife and I traveled to XXXX, Hawaii and felt swindled into attending 2+ hour meeting. During the meeting, we actually declined offers and tried to leave multiple times but felt pressured, even were boisterously reminded that we would not get our reduced price for surfing lessons if we left. Having negative feelings the entire time, we felt we had no option but to stay even though we knew we could not afford nor wanted the services they offered. Again, we attempted to politely decline offers at the end of the seminar but then were demanded to talk with a manager in a separate room to listen to our concerns and to negotiate pricing. In what initially was supposed to be a quick meeting for reduced surfing lessons quickly began to be something more than what we wanted to sign up for. With given an " offer we could not pass '' with such a discounted price we inevitably and hesitantly became clients with XXXX  XXXX  XXXX  XXXX  on XX/XX/XXXX thus signing a contract attached with Monterey Financial. 

Soon after the initial agreement, my wife and I wanted/needed to end our contract for multiple reasons but most notably we simply did not ever use their services. Although we still were not using their services we continually paid the monthly fees on time and in full never missing a payment. This began on XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX amounting in {$1900.00}. Beginning in XX/XX/XXXX, we tried to call representatives to negotiate pricing to exit the contract but were not given the option to. Because of this we felt it was in our duty to not continue paying until we were given assistance on helping our situation. We contacted several lawyers to help our case, however, the fee to assist us would exceed the amount that Monterey Financial Services was charging us. We decided to continue talking with representatives but they began threatening us saying they would send us to collection thus hurt our credit score and other scare tactics putting us in legal jeopardy. 

While we continued to find solutions to this unfair contract and malicious company things got even worse. The calls came daily, even multiple times a day to both XXXX and I 's cell phone. After being responsive their tone and demands we extremely rude and threatening. We again felt pressured and stopped answering their constant calls. It wasn't long after that they sent us to collection after trying to work with them for a proper exit. 

To this point, we still get threatening calls and now are now unfortunately heavily impacted by Monetary Financial Service poor business ethics. Before our relationship with Monetary, our credit reports were flawless. We own a home, a car, and finance other things and take great pride in doing the right thing. We are never late with any bills and this situation does not reflect who we are and how we handle our finances. This is something we have tried to fix for numerous months and would greatly appreciate further assistance on this unfortunate matter.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief