Consumer complaint received 2024-05-02
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Repossession — Account reinstatement or redemption after repossession
Company: AMERICAN HONDA FINANCE CORP (OR)

On XX/XX/XXXX, I moved to XXXX, XXXX. Unlike every other company in the USA, Honda did not bother to process my change of address form registered with the Post Office. Since I didnt get a bill from them, I didnt pay it. In XXXX of XXXX, they designed to notice my change of address form and sent me letter to that effect. 

Subsequently, I got a catchup bill from them and a threat to reposess. I was able to catch them up, but since they would no longer take electronic payment, I was forced to go to XXXX and pay {$60.00} for a XXXX, in addition to late fees. 
Their IT department incompetence in processing the change of address notifications from the US Postal Service is not my fault, and I should not be liable for late fees. 

On the evening of XX/XX/XXXX, I got out of the hospital after 40 days to discover that my car had been repossessed by Honda. 

Since I had spent 40 days in the hospital I immediately reviewed the month of mail. In that mail, I discovered a letter from Honda stating that I had 10 days extension available before they sold it, and that they would reinstate my loan for {$3300.00}. They said I had to request the extension in writing, and provided an address by XX/XX/XXXX, but they did not provide a fax number. They also said they were going to notify my wife, as a cosigner on the loan, which I know they did not do, because my wife went into the local XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. 

Since it was more than 7 days, and I knew that it would take more than 7 days for the letter to reach them, and I didnt have the funds readily available and it would take time to pull the money out of my retirement accounts, I started trying to find legal help. Unfortunately, lawyers are too specialized so I wasnt able to find a lawyer in time. 

As a XXXX XXXXXXXX, I called them on XX/XX/XXXX anyways, and they provided a fax number. At the time, my phone options werent very good, but I was able to take a picture of their form, and send it to them. Unfortunately, they couldnt read the fax ... Much XXXX ensued over the next XXXX days, and finally, they accepted my extension after I told them they were acting in bad faith, but they were only going to give me 2 days, not XXXX. 

In the meantime, I had tried to get the repossession company to hold the car while I worked out things with Honda to discover that Honda had sent the car to XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX, two days prior to the extension deadline Honda refused to tell me where the auction was going to be held, a violation of Federal Law, but a lady at the local auction house was nice enough to track down the car for me ( why I moved to XXXX  ). 

After some back and forth, Honda agreed to reinstate the loan, but now the fee had increased to {$5000.00} and change. The XXXX statement showed 12 monthly late fees all charged on the same day. Also, there were now additional repo fees of {$400.00}. 

I called Honda and asked them to explain, and they sent me a payment history which made no sense, and had no explanation of the XXXX XXXX Bills or the additional late fees. 
So heres the thing. Theres this principle of XXXX law called just notification which applies in my case, because I had an uXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX. So Hondas claim of requiring notification to exercise XXXX in my contract is void, and bad law. XXXX XXXXXXXX are just as valid as physical XXXX Also, Honda has yet to explain how my reinstatement went from {$4000.00} to $ XXXX. Finally, jumping the XXXX on the extension by 2 days before the notification deadline, puts any Honda expenses during that period as irrelevant as they had no legal rights to the car yet. Plus they still havent notified my wife Redeeming the car wasnt enough, I had to pay {$300.00} to have the car towed back to my house since I was XXXX XXXX XXXX at the time. 
Also, Honda is responsible for any/all damage to my vehicle while in their possession. While physically the car is ok, theres a subtle issue in that they re-keyed the car while it was on the repo lot. Unfortunately, when you do that on a XXXX XXXX XXXX, it invalidates all the other key fobs. 
So now I have XXXX key fobs. The repo key fob has an incorrectly cut physical key inside it, so it cant be used to unlock the car manually. The other XXXX key fobs are invalid, though the physical key works, and the battery is dead workaround of holding the key against the start button works with the old keys but not the repo key. Recently, the repo key fob stopped working to start and stop the car. I opened it up to check and discovered it was using a XXXX battery instead of a XXXX. Replacing the battery in all XXXX key fobs, Ive been able to work around this, but I need to visit an automotive locksmith to resolve this issue, which is an additional expense. 
The XXXX says that its the love of money that is the root of all evil, and while Im sure Honda Financial feels justified in their treatment of me based on them playing the percentages across all their customers, their rigidity and rules have caused me hardship and XXXX, and XXXX XXXX are still XXXX. I understand that Im an exception, but as a user interface engineer I know that humans are messy creatures. I am 100 % of me, even if Im only a small percentage of their total customer base, and I need to be treated as such.