Consumer complaint received 2020-01-25
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC. (NC)

Complaint:
I have had an auto loan with Ally since XX/XX/XXXX. I have been on auto draft since the inception of the loan. I have never missed a payment. I received a letter in XX/XX/XXXX saying a system upgrade would be taking place from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX. I called Ally to make sure my auto draft would occur as usual on the sixth of the month. I was told yes as soon as the update completed, all normal drafts would occur. On XX/XX/XXXX I called Ally and inquired about my payment not being drafted on the sixth and was assured all was ok. I was assured it would post shortly. and that there was a ten day grace period for it to post. I asked, " are you sure it will be drafted without any late fees ''. and I was told yes. 

Today, XX/XX/XXXX, I received a letter stating I had missed my XX/XX/XXXXpayment and this was an attempt to collect a debt. I called Ally immediately. I spoke with a rep named XXXX in collections. I explained to him my situation and my irritation. After going back and forth with him regardng the entire situation, I asked to speak to his supervisor. I was on hold for over 10 minutes when XXXX returned to say, conveniently, his supervisor was not available. We discussed the entire issue again and I asked him again why would I not want my payment drafted since I have been on auto draft since XX/XX/XXXX, and asked him to pull my payment history. After stating he could not verify my account being on auto draft he attempted to transfer me to Customer Service. I thought this was odd, surely a collections rep would have full access to my account since he was trying to collect a past due payment. I was on hold for more than 36 minutes this time while XXXX attempted to transfer me to Customer Service. This was to no avail as the call was disconnected. I tried to call again and was automatically hung up on. I finally spoke to XXXX in customer service after calling back. She apologized and advised she would apply for late fee to be waived. She said she would send me paper so I could have my payment drafted again. I asked why? Since I was all ready on auto draft and asked her to just to go ahead and draft the payment. She then said I would have to fill out new paperwork and then transferred me to the collections department AGAIN! 

This time I spoke with another person named XXXX. I asked to speak with someone else but she said no one was available. She said as the letter stated I would have to apply for auto draft. I told her I never was informed by anyone that I would have to reapply for auto draft. That I had been assured by Ally rep that my payment would be drafted without any late charges. She finally admitted that due to the system update that I had been taken off of auto draft. When I inquired as to why I was not notified of this being a possible result of the system update, her response was, " If you would just listen ''. 

I am filing this complaint because I did my due diligence following up with Ally to insure my auto draft would process after their system update. I attempted to make a payment. When I called to inquire as to why I was sent a collections letter, I was given the run around, purposely disconnected, passed from rep to rep and department to department, told my payment history could not be pulled to confirm I had been on auto pay since XX/XX/XXXX. Then they refused to remove the late fee and wanted to charge me a service fee to make my payment via phone as I was unable to pay online because their webpage was down, typical. This is poor business practice. Additionally, I find it hard to believe it is ok to remove customers from auto draft without written notice. If this happened to me, how many more customers were affected ; and thus, how many erroneous late fees were collected unjustly? All this in addition to the possible consequences to my and other 's credit rating. Your assistance with and attention in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation