Consumer complaint received 2021-09-10
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORPORATION (OR)

My husband and I bought a XXXX XXXX XXXX and financed it through Toyota Financial Services. My husband and I then divorced in early XXXX and in XX/XX/XXXX I put the car in my name. The guy I bought the car from at XXXX Toyota told me that I didn't have to make my first two car payments because there was some kind of grace period. So essential he said that XXXX and XXXX were freebies ( which I am not so sure about because TFS didn't see it that way ) which is another reason for filing this complaint. 

In XX/XX/XXXX, I lost my income due to covid. I went from making over {$10000.00} per month to my {$3000.00} per month. Knowing I was in dire straights, I got a deferment on my payments for 2 or 3 months in the fall of XXXX. At that point, I had only made my XXXX payment of {$740.00} which was the first payment I thought I had due. 

In XXXX I paid my monthly payment of {$740.00}. I fell behind again because I didn't have enough money to live on. However, on XX/XX/XXXX and XXXX XXXX, I made two large payments in the amounts of {$1200.00} and {$1900.00} respectively. 

Not having enough money again, I was not able to pay and I called TFS in XX/XX/XXXX to ask for a deferment and they gave me a two-month deferment/extension. In XXXX, Toyota repossessed my car. I never got a phone call. They were calling a number that was not even mine. Although they had sent me mail, I was also having issues with my mail and there have been fraudulent issues with my mail, so I had not seen a notice in my mail. 

When my car was repossessed, I was able to come up with the money necessary to get my car out of repossession. I paid Toyota over {$3000.00} for late fees, the repossession fee, and my late car payments. {$2900.00} was applied to my principal balance. 

TFS was deceitful when I spoke to several people in that they told me many times over the course of talking to them that anytime a vehicle is repossessed that any warranties, rebates, and maintenance automatically come off the car. For example, I realized that I had paid an extra {$8000.00} to have that on my car, which I also feel was deceitful. I had no idea I was paying that much! I had put that much money down on the car and had I known that I would have said NO. 

Come to find out, those fees do NOT come off the car automatically and I am sure many people are shocked to find out that it is not only time-sensitive but that the consumer HAS to do the work. Toyota Financial doesn't do any of the work to take off those thousands of dollars for you. First, I had to find out who held those warranties, maintenance, and rebate fees, which is a different company. Then the consumer has to call them, then you have to go get a certified reading of your mileage and then fill out a form and send it back to this company. Then the company will send TFS a check for the money owed. Which can take 6-8 weeks. In my case, it's almost {$8000.00} and I am upside down on my loan so this check will make a huge difference in making my car closer to what it's actually worth. 

After all of that, I was able to make my XX/XX/XXXX payment and am back on track with my car payments. However, in the last two weeks, I started getting calls from Toyota Financial and my credit report was sending me alerts stating that I am severely late on my Toyota car payments. 

Two people from TFS called me stating I was over 100 days late on my car payment and I assured them I was not. They looked in the system and said I was correct and apologized. Today after getting another alert from my credit report saying I was severely late, I called XXXX. The first message I got from Toyota was the same one I got when my car was repossessed. It said, " Your payment is severely overdue ( or something like that ) and if you think your car has been repossessed please stay on the line to speak to an agent immediately. '' When I spoke to an agent, she said my account was in fact 100 days overdue. I told her it absolutely was not and explained to her that my car was repossessed in XXXX, that I made a huge payment in XXXX and that brought my account current. That I made my car payment in XXXX and plan on making my XXXX payment in the next couple of days. 

She said that according to her records those payments were for months back. I had forgotten when I was speaking to her that I had deferments, which are applied to the end of your loan term. I assured her that I was not late, as the agents who told me when my car was repossessed assured me that my loan was current. 

She continued to tell me I was over 100 days late and I told her I absolutely was not. She said there had been returned payments and I said regardless, I know that I am current and I could tell her exactly what I have paid in. She said she would send me a billing statement so I could compare it to a bank. I told her I wanted assurance that my car was NOT going to be repossessed and she said that my car was NOT up for repossession. 

The accounting works out to this ( roughly not to the exact cents but pretty close ) : TOTAL DUE to TFS  during the term of my lease agreement including the two deferments/extensions applied to the end of the term and the " freebie two months that my loan officer said I had '' : {$8800.00} AMOUNT I have PAID to TFS during the term of my lease agreement and I am still getting calls stating I am late and my credit is showing that I haven't paid for seven consecutive months! {$8200.00} Even if they still report when you defer, which seems a bit deceptive, the longest I went without paying anything was 5 months. And they definitely should disclose that they will be reporting to creditors if you take the deferment plan. Essentially, it appears that I am $ XXXX  short of what I totally owe. 

You will see on my XX/XX/XXXX bill that my amount owed was XXXX but that all of a sudden on my XX/XX/XXXX bill it jumped up to over {$2200.00}. THere is a mistake somewhere and they wont fix it.