Consumer complaint received 2025-04-01 00:00:00
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Repossession — Voluntary repossession
Company: ALLY FINANCIAL INC.
State: NC

Complaint narrative:
In XX/XX/XXXX I co-signed for an auto loan for my nephew. At the time was gainfully employed and my nephew and I had an agreement that if he ever failed to make the payments, that I would regain possession and turn the vehicle in to the bank. 

From XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX, he made on-time payments. In XX/XX/XXXX he made a payment after 31 days ... his first late payment. My credit score dropped by 50 points. He then failed to make the XX/XX/XXXX payment. Just prior to the XXXX payment being missed, I contacted Ally Financial to inquire about surrendering the vehicle. I was told by the payment department that I would not be able to surrender the vehicle because I did not have physical possession at the time. I told them that I could get physical possession and that I would like to start the process for voluntary surrender. They refused to start the process and said that they would not even consider an involuntary repossession until after the past due was beyond 80 days. It was incredulous. I told the representative that I was unable to make the payments due to job loss and that my nephew had refused to make payments. I asked again to surrender the vehicle. The past due was not yet 60 days. 

Just prior to missing the XXXX payment, I contacted Ally again and asked to surrender the vehicle. Again, they refused, saying that my nephew had scheduled a payment arrangement for 1 months payment. I had possession of the vehicle and I told them that this was a delay tactic and that the payment was not going to go through because he no longer had the vehicle and there was incentive for him to make the payment. I asked again to surrender the vehicle. I was told that I had to wait until the payment arrangement fell through, then I could submit a request. 
So, after the XXXX payment went past-due I contacted Ally Financial again and submitted a surrender request. I was told that someone would contact me in a few days after the request was submitted. After nearly 2 weeks of waiting, I contacted Ally to get a status on my request. I was told that it was in the review process and to call back in a few days. On XX/XX/XXXX I called Ally, however they were experiencing system issues and my call went unanswered. I then called again on XX/XX/XXXX, at which point I spoke with representatives of 3 separate areas and no-one was able to provide me with a status of my initial request to surrender the vehicle. Below depicts my experience during the call, which lasted a total of about 1 hour. 
- A little after XXXXpm I called the Payments department to inquire about the status of my initial surrender request. I was told that the initial request was still in the process of being reviewed ( now 3 weeks in ). I asked if they could provide any specific details since it had been about 3 weeks since I submitted the request. I told the representative that I feared the process would drag on until yet another payment would be missed, would hit my credit report. The representative then told me he could not help me any further and that I would have to speak with someone in customer service. He transferred the called. 
- I was transferred to customer service and the representative verified all of my identifying information. After the verification was complete I again made inquiry into the status of my surrender request. The representative looked into the system and was not able to assist me and suggested that I be transferred to the payment 's department for assistance. I told the representative that I had just been transferred from the payments. However, she expressed that there was nothing that she could do for me as far as figuring out the status of my initial request, but that she was willing to open another case before transferring me back to payments. She submitted the request ( case # XXXX ). She then transferred me back to payments. 
- When I was connected with the payments department for a 2nd time, they verified all of my identifying information again, after which I inquired regarding further details of my initial surrender request. I also stated that I now had a complaint that I wanted to lodge and that I wanted to speak with a floor supervisor. The representative put me on hold and then came back to inform me that the floor manager refused to take the call and that they were told by the manager to transfer me to the workout department. The representative attempted a warm hand-off to the workout department but eventually returned and told me that the workout department refused to take the call since the payments were now 76 days past due. 
She conveyed that if I wanted to catch up on the payments that the workout team would then be able to speak with me since I couldn't be more than 14 days past due to speak with them. She did however provide me with the number of the workout department. I conveyed my dissatisfaction with the process and the inability of anyone to help determine the actual status of my request. 
- I then called the workout team. I ended up speaking with the same individual who had previously refused the warm hand-off. He explained to me that he would not be able to do anything further in the way of voluntary surrender because his department only handled cases that were 14 days or less past due. He did however agree to lodge a complaint on my behalf and that someone would call me within 48 hours.

The call ended and I was left just as uninformed about my initial surrender request as I had been before I called. My concern is that I had initially requested to surrender the vehicle before it had reached 60 days past due. At that time I was told that there was nothing that I could do until the past due had aged significantly more. Even after I told them that no additional payments were going to be made and there was no need to drag the process out and continue to miss payments, which would have negative impact on my credit, they still would not open a case for me to surrender the jeep. The account is now nearly 80 days past due and I have still not been able to process a surrender of the vehicle. In about 14 days, it will be almost 4 months past due ... further negatively impacting my credit. In XXXX my XXXX XXXX was 711. After the first missed payment it dropped by 50 points. After the second missed payment it dropped by 40 points. I never had possession of the vehicle and over the nearly 3 years of the loan ( until just recently taking it from my nephew ). I had never been the person making the payments. I understand that when I co-signed for the loan that I would be responsible if my nephew failed to make payments, so when it became clear that he was not going to pay any further and knowing that I could not financially handle the payments I contacted Ally Financial. They refused to help me then and they don't seem to be helping me now. Instead of getting a surrender release form in the mail as promised, I have been getting collection notifications. I just simply want to give the vehicle back. I don't want the XXXX, I don't need it, and frankly I can not afford it. Maybe this complaint will help the process to move along. There is no way that I should have been transferred from department to department and still no-one was able to provide any real help!

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation