Consumer complaint received 2021-05-08
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Problem with fees charged
Company: 3rd Generation, Inc. (CA)

In XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter from California Auto Finance ( CAF ) stating that I needed to provide proof of insurance on my XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX  that I originally purchased from XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in XXXX California and then California Auto Finance purchased the loan from them. 

They immediately started charging me a {$4.00} service fee to make my payment to them even if I pay on-line so I signed up for direct withdrawal hoping that would stop the {$4.00} fee but it did not so I think this is a surcharge that is unfair to people that don't have great credit but that is not what I'm complaining about. 

In XX/XX/XXXX CAF sent the letter and I immediately went to my XXXX app and downloaded a copy to my computer and e-mailed it to them. In XXXX I received another letter stating that I needed to provide proof or they would attach a Loss Damage Waiver to my account so I re-sent the e-mail asking them to respond stating that they received my proof but CAF did not respond. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I received a phone call from XXXX @ XXXX and it was a lady from CAF asking me where my car payment was at and I told her that I just received a text from CAF this morning stating that my automatic withdrawal was complete and she said I don't see that on my end and I told her to look again because I'm on automatic withdrawal from them and she asked me when my payment is due by and I told her again that I'm on automatic withdrawal from their company and you take the payment when you take it. 

She then said she looked it up and it's due today to which I rudely replied back to her that I got the text message already stating that the payment has been received. 
She then says, well, we have not received your proof of insurance either and I said to her that I have had XXXX fax the proof, I have downloaded and sent the proof via e-mail just like the letter asked me to do and I did that in XXXX and she then tells me we do not accept emails to which I replied that you do because the letter said to send it to this e-mail address and that is what I did, I also sent another follow up e-mail to the orginal asking if I could get a confirmation e-mail back and she replied that that never happened and then out of the blue she tells me that I have the incorrect address on my proof of insurance ( which just confirmed to me that she had the proof right in front of her all along ) and I said to her, does that mean that XXXX of California does not know your address because they also faxed a copy to you as well as me emailing it and now you tell me the address is wrong. 

She then said yes, please write this address down and this is where you can mail your proof to and I said I'm driving can you just email me the address so that way there is no mistaken issues anymore and she simply said no, we do not do email to which I replied, you know what, your just wanting more money and so in the end it does not matter what hoops I jump through it will not be enough so just do what your wanting to do and add the waiver and I will do what I have to do to fight it and she said we don't want to do this we just want the correct address on the proof and I hung up. 

on XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter from an unknown sender that just says XXXX XXXX so I opened it and it was from CAF saying that I did not provide proof and therefore they were immediately charging me {$1600.00} ( amount financed ), at an annual rate of 16.99 % with a finance charge of {$260.00} for a total of payments in the amount of {$1900.00} and that will now bring my monthly payment to a new payment in the amount of {$460.00} from the {$350.00} I currently pay.

I ask that you reach out to CAF and have them stop what they are doing and I also ask that you investigate this company for fraudulent ways of doing business because I can guarantee you that if they are doing this to me then they are doing this to people that do not know how to get help.