Consumer complaint received 2017-04-14
Product: Consumer Loan — Vehicle loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — 
Company: Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. (TX)

In XX/XX/XXXX I began making additional payments to my auto loan that were not applied correctly. After speaking with Santander they informed me that I should make two separate payments to avoid accounting problems, which I began doing in XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I checked the account and realized that my payments were still being applied incorrectly. I spent an approximately an hour on the phone with one of Santanders ' representatives going through all payments and the way they should have been applied. At the conclusion of our call on XX/XX/XXXX, I was informed that {$1700.00} would be applied to the principal of my auto loan by XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX I called back in to check the status of my account only to be told that the principal payment request was never submitted. I went through the same payment review process with a new Santander representative on XX/XX/XXXX and was told that a supervisor by the name of XXXX had submitted a request to have {$1700.00} applied to the principal of my auto loan. I was informed that the request should be completed by XX/XX/XXXX. On the morning of XX/XX/XXXX, I called in once again to check the status of the additional payments that were made on my account only to discover that the principal reduction request was only submitted for the amount of {$500.00}, and was still not applied to the account. At this point, I am a week into the process of trying to have money I 've already paid correctly applied to the principal of my auto loan and have yet to obtain any specifics as to when or if it will done. I have only been told that we are waiting on accounting to complete the request, which again, does not solve the issue because the principal reduction was only for the amount of {$500.00}, which means {$1200.00} still has not gone to the principal of my auto loan even though I 've already paid it. I have no idea how Santander operates internally, nor is that my concern, but from a consumers ' perspective the level of incompetence and the inconsistencies within Santanders ' standard operating procedures is appalling. More importantly, the blatant lies with respect to payment processing is unacceptable. At no point should any company be permitted to mishandle or misappropriate funds that have been received by consumers without penalty. The fact that Santanders ' representatives have all lied, speaks to the integrity of the organization as a whole. The corporate culture of an organization is clearly reflected by the caliber of individuals they permit to interact with consumers on their behalf. It has become my sole mission to ensure that no one else has to endure the level of mistreatment I 've been forced to tolerate. Furthermore, I will remain steadfast in my resolve to ensure that the as much of the general public is aware of Santanders ' deceptive practices as possible. Based upon my experience, it is apparent that Santander is only concerned with increasing their profitability without regard for the consumers upon which their organization has been built.