Consumer complaint received 2024-08-13
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: BMO Bank, N.A. (GA)

We originated a boat loan with Bank of the West on XXXX. We made over payments on this loan from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX of $ XXXX. The monthly obligation was around {$1600.00}. Our loan was bought out by BMO Harris sometime in XXXX or XXXX of XXXX. This is when our problem occurred. We continued to make payments against our account as we had. We then called in to inquire about missing a payment due to the fact that we were moving from XXXX back to XXXX We were told we were ahead on the loan and it wouldn't be a problem to miss a payment. They also offered some program that would enable us to take advantage of interest only payments where the remaining balance would rollover to the back of the loan. This turned out to be false. We only noticed this when we logged into our account and noticed that our payments were going to interest only. We asked the bank to work with us due to the fact that there was miscommunication over this matter. We even asked a supervisor to go back and review the call since they inform us we are on a recorded line. But there was no effort to give us the benefit of the doubt in this matter. So, we continued to pay these interest only payments. In the meantime, the transparency of the loan is very limited online. I can only view the last 90 days of activity on my account. In XXXX of XXXX, I reviewed my account again ; only to notice that I am still getting hit with interest only payments. I called into there support center again. And this call went worse than the first call I made. The agents and supervisor were telling us conflicting information. The supervisor informed us that we missed six payments. And I immediately informed her that this was not possible. The last conversation we had with their support team, we were told we were ahead on schedule with the payment schedule. So I was totally as to how I could have missed 6 months of payments when my credit is still almost perfect and we were ahead of schedule. Once again the supervisor was adamite that we caused the issue with our account and the only way to catch up the interest was to make another {$1900.00} on around XX/XX/XXXX, after we had just made a {$1900.00} payment on the first of the month. We requested the supervisor send us the payment history for this loan, along with the contract since there was no way I would debate loan payments without it. They sent us the payment history and only then did I notice that when BMO first bought our loan. I think they were going through a name change or something to that effect. In the payment history the payment dates were correct. But we noticed that three payments were made to BMO Harris around XXXX, XXXX and XXXX but the payments were not applied to our account until XX/XX/XXXX. This was the cause for the interest only payments ; not the program they offered at the time that we made our first call into there support center. The result of this discrepancy has costed us around {$12000.00} in interest only payments and no principle for around 7 months now. We attempted to call back into support to bring this issue to light and after around 30 minutes with the first agent we were getting no where in making our point, so again we asked for a supervisor. Once the supervisor got on the line. She was also not helpful. We asked again for her to go back and review our previous calls and we were told that was not an option. She also remained adamite that the interest only payments are a result of us not making payments on time. I am reaching out to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as I do not know what else to do. I don't have funding for an attorney and I have had this boat for sale for over a year now. But I can not sell the boat due to the fact that I am upside down on the loan and my principle has remained that same on this loan for almost a year now. I feel like the bank is willingly trying to take what they can from us right or wrong. And they are making no effort to make amends for the billing/payment mistake where they sat on three months worth of payments before applying them to our account. The strangest part of the whole thing is, we never received a call notifying us we were late ; nor were we hit with any late charges despite the fact that we were told we did not make any payments for 6 months. Also, one final issue I have had with this institution is when I attempt to make a payment on their website. They do not apply the money to the account for 5-6 business days after the payments are made. I have never dealt with this in around 30 years of dealing with credit. So basically, I can submit a payment on the first of the month. But it doesn't get applied to our account for 5-6 " business days. '' This also hurts their customer due to the fact that BMO gets to take 5-6 days of interest occurring during this time, even though the payment was made on time. I have exhausted all avenues I know to attempt to work with this institution and I am pleading for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help me get this matter resolved as I am getting no where in my attempts. In the meantime, I continue to loose money over this discrepancy that occurred over 7 months ago. When looking at the payment history provided, the discrepancy arose when three payments were applied on the same day and our payments suddenly became interest only payments. Please let me know if you need any additional information from us. Thanks for your time.