Consumer complaint received 2026-05-21 00:00:00
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: American International Finance, Inc.
State: IN

Complaint narrative:
This complaint is about American International Finance running a transaction on my card without my permission, without speaking to me, without any prior written or verbal agreement for this specific transaction, and the problems that I have inccured since then such as reposession of my car and XXXX stating that I am unsatisfied and " should part ways '' with them. I reached out to my account rep XXXX XXXX at American International Finance on XX/XX/XXXX via email. I talked to her about having been able to regain access to my online account for payment, I asked her about an adjustment to the payment schedule, and asked if I could pay at a later date. I didn't hear from XXXX right away but realized a few days later when my card declined for a small purchase and that I had a transaction on my bank account from XXXX in the amount of {$670.00}. I spoke with my bank about it and they accused me of doing fraud on my own account since I had just gotten the debit card for the account replaced after losing the original one days before XXXX ran this transaction. My bank told me I needed to file a police report against XXXX if I truly did not run the transaction myself, close my card, and never give XXXX my finanacial information again or I would be responsible for what happens with my account if they continued in a similar vein. The bank literally interrogated me and threatened to close my account, which I have had with them at least since XXXX. The bank said that they would dispute the transaction XXXX because the transaction cause my account to go negative {$670.00} because there was no money in the account when XXXX XXXX the transaction and XXXX because the bank says it is fraud if anybody uses your card without your permission. They said it is illegal. XXXX reached out to me on XX/XX/XXXX to follow up on our previous conversation about a payment extension. I further re-explained to her that I did not have a specific pay date and expected to be paid between the XXXX and the XXXX. At that time, I let XXXX know that XXXX had run a fraudulent transaction on my account. XXXX responded " What do you mean?? The payment of {$670.00} last time was run by XXXX and he noted you and he spoke on the phone. Did you not give him permission to run that? I don't understand. '' I responded, " That is not true. I do not know XXXX and have never spoken with anyone about a payment other than you. Why XXXX I say run the payment and then email and say I cant pay until I get paid. The bank said its fraudulent and wanted me to file a police report. I do not call patments over the phone. This is why you and I were just talking about my online account not working because I didnt want to call my card number out over the phone. Who is your manager? '' XXXX said, " I am forwarding this to the manager right now. Because the account was 15 days past due, on XXXX, it was assigned to someone else by the name of XXXX. Because of the notes and the fact that it was paid, that is why there hadn't been any correspondence from me. So you have disputed the {$670.00} charged to card number ending in XXXX on XXXX? '' AT the end of this conversation on XX/XX/XXXX XXXX said, " I promise you that I'm trying to get to the bottom of this. I didn't lie or process a payment without your approval. That's why I'm trying to understand what happened. All I show in the account notes is that at XXXX on Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX spoke to you on your cell XXXX and that you authorized the {$670.00} payment to cover the XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX payments. I apologize if this is not the case. I need to find out exactly what happened. I'm trying to do so. I need to understand if you've disputed it with your bank. Obviously, I know why you would, if it wasn't authorized. If it was disputed, however, we will need to arrange for all of the payments to be made and your account to be caught up. That will be the end result though. Let me first find out about the charge. '' I told XXXX I would wait for her manager to reach out to me. The XXXX never did reach out to me and the next time XXXX reached out on XXXX she said, " Please contact me ASAP regarding your account. We have not yet received the chargeback for the unauthorized transaction. Your account is past due for XX/XX/XXXX, and we need to arrange a plan to bring the account current. '' I said, " Hi. Im still waiting for your manager to contatct me about the unauthorized use of my financial information. Do you know when your manager will reach out? '' I did not get another response until XXXX and XXXX said, " I'm reaching out because we must resolve this account. I understand your anger regarding your claim that our representative ran your credit card payment without your authorization. However, you told me that you've disputed it ( we still don't have a record of it coming back yet ). Failing to make any further payments for a month is unacceptable. Once the transaction returns, you will be 2 months behind,, 4 bi-weekly payments. You must take care of the past due amount of {$710.00} immediately or we will need to make alternate arrangements for the vehicle. Please contact me at the number below. '' I reminded her that I had requested to speak to a manager a few times already by this time it had been a few weeks, I reminded her that I was talkling about fraud. XXXX said, " I understand that you want to speak with a manager but typically, the finance manager does not make phone calls. You can file a complaint on our website if you wish to do so. I can't tell you any more than that. Again, I understand your anger but that does not negate the fact that you owe the payments. I'm trying to resolve this and correct the wrong but since you are not out that money ( since you disputed the transaction ) there is really nothing else for me to do. I can only suggest that you make cash payments at XXXX going forward if you are not comfortable giving your card information. '' I did not make any payment because I am still skeptical about the security of future payments to this provider considering the fraud on my account, their refusal to address it with me, or discuss a way to make secure payments in the future such as walking away witha receipt if cash is paid or a guarantee the funds will be applied to the account. XXXX reposessed the car XXXX or 3 day ago and no one at their company would give me any information on the car or the past due balance and said I had to talk to XXXX who was not working for the next 2 days. One of the employees who answered the phone and told me that I could only speak to XXXX was XXXX, the employee who ran the fraudulent transaction on my account. XXXX previously said she handled him even though she isn't a manager, but he still works there. These things are highly concerning in regards to the matter of fraud at hand. Not to be that guy, but you person reading this would you give more financial information or payments to a company that has already committed fraud with your information and will acknowledge they committed fraud and that it is illegal to do so but won't make the situation right? Their only response is give me more money and no you can't talk to a manager? If so, how would you give them the money so you don't take a loss and ensure it gets documented in their system? I asked about paying cash in the office today and walking away with a receipt in hand and XXXX said, " Yes, that is a possibility. I want to ask ; do you know the exact date that you disputed the {$670.00} transaction with your bank? '' This makes me feel uncomfortable to be honest as if they are playing a game. Firstly, the bank disputed the transaction over a month ago. Why are they asking me about a dispute for a fraudulent charge that they ran over a month ago, but have refused to have a manager speak with me about the same transaction/dispute? I called today and XXXX said of course we would give you a receipt if you give us cash, but we might not give you the car back so that is the possibility. So my understanding is that I can pay the full past due balance, but the supervisor has the choice to decide if they will give me the car after I pay the full past due balance. XXXX said, to my understanding, they dont actually know how much my past due balance is because of the fraudulent charge and my bank doing whatever they are doing. So I can't actually pay, even though they reposessed the car and are holding it. They don't actaully know how much I owe so they will not accept a payment on top of the probability that they still might not give the car back even if I pay full balance. So currently XXXX am just forced to pay to get the car back while still refuse to address the concerns of fraud but their own accounting department doesn't even know how much I owe. What is the guarantee for me that they will or can keep things figured out after I make the payment and future payments when today they won't accept a past due balance because they don't know how much it is? They are struggling to account for invisible money, what happens with real money? and no one will even talk to me to say anything other than " you need to pay '' " we don't know how much you owe '' " maybe we might give the car back after you pay the full balance. '' When I talked to XXXX on the phone earlier today, I had to remind her again that this resulted from a fraudulent charge that I was not able to discuss or resolve with a manager and only got response " to pay ''. I unfortunately had to explain to XXXX how jarring and concerning it is for a financial institution to fraudulently use your finanacial information without your permission. XXXX stated, " You seem unsatisfied. Maybe its time for us to just part ways. '' So because I continued to talk about the fraud and how it relates to payment, ask for a manager, and ask for a balance for today and receipt for a payment today XXXX XXXX 's solution was to tell me to " part ways with XXXX ''. It sounds like she does not want me to pay the past due balance and is instead offering an alternative to holding a contract with XXXX. I am not sure why a financial institution that has a contract with you would verbally tell you to part ways unless they want to part ways. IF XXXX is willing to let me out of their contract with no penalty seemingly because they don't like me asking about the fraud or how I can pay without my bank closing my account or without accounting errors on their end ( because I do not have online access to my account again ) I would consider accepting the offer XXXX gave me over the phone on XX/XX/XXXX if they put it in writing. XXXX said this in email on XX/XX/XXXX, " The transaction you said was unauthorized was for {$670.00}. You told me you disputed that. Your bank has not yet notified us of that dispute, so it has not been removed from your account. If you were to pay the full {$2000.00}, it would show that you are paid ahead but once the dispute comes through, it would take your due date back to where it should be. Unfortunately, I have no way of rushing that or finding out when your bank will take that from us. '' I had to further further explain after XXXX made it seem as if I did something wrong by disputing the fraudulent transaction that there was never money in the account. XXXX implied that the bank gave me back {$670.00} so I could have immediately paid it back to XXXX. XXXX said on the phone, " You might be able to see that your bank gave you the {$670.00} back, but they haven't taken {$670.00} back from us. We don't see that on our end. '' I clarified that there was no money for the bank to give back to me because there was never money in the account in the first place. Which is why I would have never told XXXX who I didn't talk to to run a transaction for {$670.00} when I knew I didn't have money, don't get direct deposit, a nd don't have a set pay date. THis is why I was emailing XXXX about paying at a different time because I knew I didnt have money. This is why the bank disputed the transaction, because I told them the truth of what happened and they said it is fraud for anyone to do that so the bank themselves disputed the transaction. My only other option would have been close the account on the spot in which the bank still would have disputed the transaction because there was no money in the account at the time of the transaction. XXXX got a bit quiet, changed the tone of her voice, and said that she would have to follow up with the accountant to see if they have the money ( {$670.00} ) or if they don't or if the back took it back from them or not. XXXX said she would call back the same day but I have not heard back from her at almost XXXX XXXX EST. Tomorrow will be day XXXX or XXXX of not having my car and also not being able to pay the balance due to XXXX policy or negligence I am not sure. I can't say what my bank is doing and I shouldn't be held responsible to the point I can not even pay the past due balance becauase of all the problems that have resulted from XXXX and XXXX running this fraudulent payment on my bank acount in the first place and refusing to follow up with me about or address the matter other than to say " just pay '' or " you are angry ''. XXXX still has not called me back to give an updated or corrected balance. Should I be out of a car when I am stuck on a contract with XXXX and they can't even tell me how much I owe or let me pay? All because of a frauduluent transaction they won't addresss and keep blaming on me because whatever the bank is doing? If a XXXX or a XXXX kid did what XXXX did, they would be prosecuted and fined at least. Please see my attached call log for my phone which will show that I received no phone call from any number on the date documented that XXXX called me of XXXX at XXXX XXXX and documented verbal permission from me to runa payment on my card for {$670.00} as reported by XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation