Consumer complaint received 2023-01-30
Product: Debt collection — Other debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt is not yours
Company: Aubrey Thrasher, LLC (NY)

Complaint:
In the beginning of Last year I needed a business loan for my construction company to prepare for a big upcoming project for which I needed to acquire some expensive equipment I also needed money to generally expand my company, I was looking for a long term loan preferably an SBA loan 5-10 years, I searched online and found a company with excellent reviews. I called them up, they requested some information from me and said they would get back to me soon, later that day they called me up with an offer for a XXXX loan with weekly payments of {$800.00} for one year with NO personal guarantee and they also sent me an email with the offer. I told them right away that I'm not interested in this loan and this is not the type of loan I'm looking for, the payments are too large and the interest is exorbitant and it would put an enormous strain on the company. They kept calling me to try to persuade me to accept the loan, at some point I told them that if everything with this upcoming project works out exactly as planned, I would have no problem repaying the loan, but I have no guarantee that it will, and then I will be stuck with these huge payments if it doesn't. So I was told then that I do not have to worry about that, because if you check the offer you'll see that this loan has no personal guarantee and only the company would be liable in case anything goes rung. After weeks of persuasion and repeating countless times that this loan has no personal guarantee I caved and accepted the loan. Actually receiving the funds was a very quick process, I did not have to sign any documents whatsoever not even electronically, and I was funded the same day, we received a total of {$29000.00}. We started making payments on the loan before the project even began, and we paid back a total of {$4800.00}, In the end that project fell through, and my company was not able to continue making payments. I told the lender right away what happened, I asked them to give me some time and I will come up with a way repay my company 's loan. Right in the beginning when the payments stopped, they began telling me that I personally guaranteed the loan and I'm personally responsible for it, I forwarded to them the email with the loan offer where it states clearly that there is no Personal Guarantee on this loan, but that did not help, they kept saying that I'm personally responsible for this loan. I did not care about what they are saying too much because regardless I wanted to work out a way to settle this with them, but I needed some more time because I was extremely stressed financially and I asked them to give me a few months and then I will figure out a way to settle this with them, I always responded to all their emails. Around 6 weeks ago I was contacted by their collection attorney XXXX XXXX - Attorneys at Law about the loan, I wrote a letter to them with the entire story with all the details and I included a payment plan in which the entire principle that my company borrowed would be repaid, and it would mostly come from my personal earnings ( I began working as an employee since that huge lose I had with my company ). They did not want to accept my offer or counter offer with anything that would be possible for me to pay. When I explained to them that with what I'm earing at the moment it would be impossible for me to pay it the way they want, they said that they would have to proceed with litigation against me personally, even though I already showed them evidence that I was clearly told that this loan has no personal guarantee, and I would never have taken this loan otherwise. I also forwarded to them the loan offer where it states clearly that there was no personal guarantee.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation