Consumer complaint received 2024-06-19
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: HYUNDAI CAPITAL AMERICA (IL)

I purchased a new car from Kia on XX/XX/XXXX. My loan was financed through Kia Finance America. The loan details are as follows : Principal amount : {$39000.00} Loan Duration : 72 months/6 years Monthly installments : {$650.00} ( comes out to {$47000.00} if I paid off the loan within the loan duration, implying that this total amount includes the total interest I would have to pay ) Please find attached the letter stating that my account is current ( filename " Account Status '' ), all the statements for my account ( filename " Month Year '' ), and the payment history documentation ( filename " Payment History '' and " Payment History ( Webpage ) '' ). As can be noted from the payment history, from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX, I duly paid my monthly statements. However, on XX/XX/XXXX, I made an extra payment of {$4000.00} from which an interest of {$5.00} was charged. This payment is over and above the monthly installment, and also more than the due amount for that month ( as noted in the statements for XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX ). I made many extra payments in the subsequent months to the present day. For every such payment, even though my statement mentions no amount due, I was charged interest. The total interest charged on extra payments is approximately {$1000.00}.

The " make a payment '' page on the Kia finance website does not have an option for " Principal-only payment ''. I called Kia Finance to inquire about the procedure to apply extra payments to the principal only. The customer representative informed me that I need to call them every time I want a payment to be applied to the principal only. I made a payment of {$4800.00} on XX/XX/XXXX and then called the customer service of Kia Finance. The representative stated that I still have to pay interest as it is accrued every day. My reply was that this was an extra payment and above the due amount. Therefore, there should be no interest charged. In particular, you can not charge a " future interest '' today. After a lot of explaining and arguing, my payment was applied to the principal only ( as can be noted in the payment history document ). However, no such adjustments were made to the previous payments which were also above the due amount. I also made payments in the last XXXX months ( once in XX/XX/XXXX and twice in XX/XX/XXXX ) and I was charged a total of {$260.00} in interest, despite having XXXX amount due for each of the last XXXX months. I have also attached XXXX letters stating the total interest payments for each year ( filename " Interest_Year '' ).

I again contacted Kia Finance on XX/XX/XXXX to request the adjustment of all the extra payments made ; mainly, removing the interest amount. The representative gave me the same answer about the interest being charged every day. I asked her to explain to me how can there be interest if the amount due is XXXX, to which she had no answer. I also asked that the monthly installments incorporate the interest due, and then why am I being charged interest separately, to which she had no answer. I requested more transparent information on the calculations of these interest charges. She submitted my complaint and I received two emails about it ( screenshots of emails under the filename " Complaint Email 1 '' and " Complaint Email 2 '' ). However, no action was taken on my complaint. I did not receive any call or email and my account, to date, shows the interest charged on the extra payments.