Consumer complaint received 2023-07-14
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Struggling to pay your loan — Lender trying to repossess or disable the vehicle
Company: PRESTIGE FINANCIAL SERVICES INC (MD)

I am filing a complaint against Prestige Financial for what I believe is unfair business practices, and lack of communication. On XX/XX/XXXX I was a victim of the viral XXXX challenge, and due to the nationwide issue, XXXX was not able to get the parts in stock and repair my vehicle until the first week of XX/XX/XXXX. I have been in contact with Prestige Financial about this, and the financial hardship this has caused due to my out of pocket expenses for weekly rentals/XXXX  's to continue working. Because I could not make a payment in XXXX, I was notified that my account would be moving to loss mitigation. On XX/XX/XXXX, I called to speak with XXXX who was now managing my account with loss mitigation to explain the situation with XXXX, and the status of my reimbursement from them to see what could be done. XXXX informed me that she would be speaking with her supervisor about the situation, and giving me a callback by the end of the day, to let me know what they could do. I then asked if I should forward over the email to them, from XXXX, stating my reimbursement claim was being worked on ; which XXXX responded " yes '', so they would have proof of this. I did not receive a callback that day, but XXXX did follow up with me the following day to let me know she was unable to speak with her supervisor the day prior, but when they came in today she would speak with them and give me a callback. I never heard back from XXXX, and on XX/XX/XXXX I called back and left a message requesting a follow up. I still never received a callback, but on XX/XX/XXXX I received communication from Prestige letting me know that my account was passed due, and I would need to submit a payment to stop repossession of the vehicle. I informed them that I had spoken with XXXX, but never received a response and once again attempted to forward the email from XXXX showing my reimbursement was being reviewed. Prestige Financial responded that they were under the impression that I picked up the vehicle, which I confirmed I did not/could not at the moment because I needed almost {$900.00} to do so, and I did not currently have the funds. They also stated that while they are aware of my reimbursement, " payment needs to be made to stop the repossession and the account moving to recovery by the end of the month ''. I responded letting them know that I am reaching back out to XXXX to get the status of my reimbursement claim, and that I was hoping I would have my funds by the end of the month to pay the full balance, but if not I understand the vehicle must be turned over for repossession. Prestige Financial let me know they were reaching back out to the XXXX dealership repairing my vehicle to clarify what was happening, and then responded that they had cleared up the confusion with my vehicle still being there. The service center repairing my vehicle was aware that I was working to gather the amount needed to pick up my vehicle, and the service manager told me to follow up with him by Friday. Today is Friday, and I called the service center as instructed to let them know I had gathered the funds, and could come today to pick up the vehicle. This is when they proceeded to inform me that Prestige financial had already came and picked up the car on Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX. At no point when communicating with Prestige Financial on XX/XX/XXXX, did they let me know they were repossessing the car at this time. When I called to speak with XXXXXXXX XXXX supervisor XXXX, she was very nasty. She constantly cut me off, and spoke very condescendingly. She stated that I had to make a " 60 day passed due payment to hold off the repossession '' ; and at first she insisted that I was notified of this on Tuesday, but then later had to correct herself after we went through the messages together, to prove I was not. She then states that payment needed to be made immediately to stop the repossession ( even though this was not clearly communicated ) ; and that the statement " payment needs to be made to stop the repossession and the account moving to recovery by the end of the month '', is saying two separate things. The first being I needed to make a payment immediately ( even though nothing clarifies what this payment needed to be, even she admitted I was not notified that a 60 day payment would stop the repossession ). The second being that to keep my account with loss mitigation, and not sent to the account recovery department, I needed to make a payment by the end of the month. I tried to explain that this was not clear at all to someone who has never been in this situation, or know anything about how this process works. I also explained that I was under the impression that they were going to try and work with me, and there has been a lack of communication from their department. Again, she was very rude and unhelpful. I do have the written communications, but when asked if the calls for their department were recorded ( in reference to the two calls I had with XXXX XXXX, she informed me that she did not know, and that it was based on the state I was calling from. I asked if I could speak with the department that would know, and she stated I could not because they do not communicate with customer 's unless that information is requested through legal channels.