Consumer complaint received 2023-12-30
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan — Installment loan
Issue: Problem with the payoff process at the end of the loan — 
Company: MARINER FINANCE, LLC (NY)

I took a personal loan with Mariner Finance which was being paid successfully and they were soliciting me to get a larger loan which I subsequently did in XXXX of XXXX. However, when Covid hit my income took an initial hit so my payment payment started to fall behind. However I was regularly attempting to make payments online but their payment processor would not accept a single payment it would only accept the " full amount due '' which included the past due amount, current amount and upcoming amount due. As a result a payment that would have been 30 days late snowballed into an inability to make any payments. During this time the Mariner Offices were shut down and there was a complete inability to reach anyone to rectify the situation. You had to call the office and leave a message and wait until someone got back to you. On the 3 occasions my call was returned it was either at night when I wasn't available or the call was returned by someone from another branch ( than the one my loan originated from ) that couldn't help me. This went on for months - as evidenced by my credit history Mariner was the only account this was occurring with after the initial issue, as I was making payments on all my other accounts. They never contacted me by mail or phone to work to resolve the issue but only sent me monthly emails saying my account was behind and to contact the branch ( with just the branch 's number ) in order to address. This was despite the fact the branch was closed and then apparently only open on a limited basis without publicized hours. Despite the fact that I was seriously falling behind, in XXXX of XXXX they sent me an email that I was pre-approved for an additional loan that matched the amount I was behind on the current loan ( {$910.00} ) which is clearly predatory lending in my opinion. On XX/XX/XXXX I got an email that I needed to contact them by XX/XX/XXXX to discuss my options. But once again I was given the number of the branch that told me there was nothing they could do. Despite that I attempted to call the branch again when I received the email on XX/XX/XXXX but got no answer on XX/XX/XXXX and they were closed for the holiday on XX/XX/XXXX. So I sat and waited for someone to contact me from the " central collections '' to address the issue. I got XXXX communication from anyone via mail, phone call or email until XXXX XXXX when I was sent an email with the number for central collections. I called the number on XX/XX/XXXX as soon as I saw the email. Despite only a single email and the fact that I contacted them immediately I was told that it was too late that they had already charged my account off and I would need to wait to hear from a collections agency. On XX/XX/XXXX I was contacted by a 3rd party collection company that represented Mariner and was offered a settlement which would consider my account paid in full and which I took and the account was paid within 30 days. However as I paid it immediately there was no reported collection activity on my credit and so it continues appears to be an unpaid collection. To add insult to injury Mariner is not only not reporting it as paid but they are listing the date of the charge off back to XXXX of XXXX despite my numerous attempts to rectify the issue during XXXX. I wrote to Mariner and requested that they at least list my account as a paid charge off and they failed to respond. I believe that Mariner participated in predatory lending by encouraging me to take a second larger loan to pay off the first loan and by offering me a " guaranteed loan '' of the amount that I was behind on the current loan thereby attempting to get additional interest in bringing my current loan up to date. I believe that they caused the default of my loan by refusing to accept single payments and providing no other options to attempt to bring the loan current and the inability to successfully contact their company due to their complete shut down during Covid. Lastly I call into question the accuracy of their accounting and credit reporting practices since they contacted me from Mariner XXXX XXXX  in XXXX of XXXX to discuss payment and assistance options but yet are reporting that the account was charged off in XXXX of XXXX and in fact the account was paid off in XXXX of XXXX. Some of the documentation I have regarding the situation is attached ( Significantly more available but limited by the size of your allowable attachments )