Consumer complaint received 2020-12-30
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: TIDEWATER FINANCE COMPANY, INC. (CA)

I bought a car in the summer of XXXX that was financed through Tidewater Financial. I was late during the year of XXXX and had one payment returned with a {$15.00} fee. XXXX though was a new and different year. I have not been late, actually paid the NSF fee ( 3 ) times, started paying with a check to avoid the extra {$10.00} fee per payment whether online or on the phone that the company charges. This summer XXXX I called to get a pay off amount. I came into some extra monies and realized that my interest rate of 17.75 % was actually 17.99 % and that I would save four years of interest on a 6 year loan if I paid it off. My payments are {$480.00} per month. I knew this money would be coming in about three months so figuring our the extra payments I should owe around {$18000.00} to payoff my loan on my XXXX XXXX XXXX. I received a notice from XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX saying my balance had gone UP in the amount of {$200.00}. How could this be when I am making monthly payments? This implies as it effected my credit score I am NOT making my payments when in fact I WAS making my payments. I called into Tidewater Financial and got a really nice girl who stated ( their conversations are recorded ) that their accounting system had changed but a supervisor would look into this and call me back. I called three different times with supervisors supposedly going to look into my requests without hearing from anyone before reaching out to the headquarters of Tidewater Financial. The first person who I spoke to at corporate was a XXXX XXXX who sent me a payoff notice on XX/XX/XXXX stating I owed $ XXXXwhich was MORE than when I called in the summer three months EARLIER! Along with the payoff she sent me a complete breakdown of my allocation of payments. I ended up auditing their payment history as there were many errors in it. I do accounting and finance for a living. I sent back an email with my concerns and it was then escalated to XXXX XXXX who on XX/XX/XXXX sent me another breakdown of my payment history-which had more interesting ways of allocations that contradicted what XXXX gave me-and the balance was the same number even though at this point ( 2 ) additional payments had been made but not allocated to the account. Mind you side note-the payments are sent to XXXX XXXX but get deposited to a Tennessee lockbox which delays payments-I have all my checks dated on the checks cashed and it is conveniently taking enough time for me to incur late fee, charges and accrued interest on my account. I do another audit pointing out the inconsistencies with allocations, the two different system statements sent to me, my findings with no response from XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX when I now hear from a XXXX XXXX who is the Compliance and Credit Supervisor at Tidewater Financial. By the way my credit report updated on XX/XX/XXXX saying my car loan went down {$180.00} BUT this means there is still an increase of {$23.00} they are reporting incorrectly. On XX/XX/XXXX Tidewater puts a note on my credit account about looking into my payment history etc. but then on XX/XX/XXXX my car loan goes up another {$35.00} according to my credit report I sent Tidewater copies of it-so now I am a total on my credit report showing an increase of {$58.00} that they will not credit nor remove from my credit report to adjust it correctly. It is at this time I begin to work with XXXX XXXX who ignores my emails until the XXXX of XXXX stating responses have been mailed to me. I have to ask here if she can send me a copy of those letters before I get them. At this point a XXXX XXXX is now involved and sends me copies of the letters in the mail to me. I email both back asking why I was charged monies for fees I was not told about? I asked them both why my credit keeps getting attacked when they said it would not? I have all the emails and audits to support these claims. I then do ANOTHER AUDIT against the new information provided. I listed again the concerns that I still had. I now had another NSF fee even thought I had not had any payment returned since that one time. They said they were going to credit it me {$550.00} that they charged me in certain fees, yet if you add up the late fees, the convivence fee that I was never told would be included in the amount of {$24.00} monthly, the supposedly late fees, even though the were made on time over the phone but it posted later? All these fees they charged me did NOT end up being only {$550.00} not by how they calculated it but just by using their own allocation on their statements sent to me. To make matters worse instead of giving me the credit of the incorrect amount they only credited my account per their own statement $ XXXXthis is not including the NSF on my statement they can not explain, the extra {$58.00} on my credit or the incorrect calculation of my interest using the governments site of how my payments should be posting using the interest rate I have, months of the loan and also my monthly payment-again I did ANOTHER audit from the last statement showing with their information which is wrong but I allocated it how they said I paid and the numbers do not add up. All I am asking for is them to make the account correct-have a video call with me to resolve calmly the issues-take the payments since XXXX and apply them to principle so I can pay off the account. Why basically should I pay an extra almost {$1500.00} extra for something I do not owe? I emailed XXXX and XXXX again today again after getting another generic letter with again a copy of my contract-the contract is not the issue their payment center processing is. I am asking for your company 's help as I am also trying to get my government representatives involved-but with a global pandemic and also a political change going on it will be some time if I hear anything and I want to resolve this now.