Consumer complaint received 2025-10-29 00:00:00
Product: Payday loan, title loan, personal loan, or advance loan — Installment loan
Issue: Charged fees or interest you didn't expect — 
Company: Credova Holdings Inc
State: FL

Complaint narrative:
I am filing this complaint against Credova Financial LLC and XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX regarding a Closed End Consumer Product Lease for a firearm that I signed on XX/XX/year>. The lease number ends in XXXX. The lease shows the product cost as {$430.00} and says that if I follow the early buyout process, I can own the firearm outright instead of continuing the 12-month lease. 


The contract gives me a 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee Buyout Option ( SGB Option ). It states that if I want full ownership in the first 30 days, I can contact them on or before XX/XX/year> to exercise this option, and that exercising this option will allow you to end the lease early and purchase the product ( s ) from us. It also says the SGB Option price is the fair market value of the product which we calculate to equal {$430.00} plus any applicable official fees and taxes, minus {$0.00} down, and that if I pay that amount in full within XXXX days of them accepting it, you will own the property outright and your lease will end. 


The lease also says very clearly how I am supposed to exercise that right : I must contact us and notify us that you are exercising the SGB Option on or before XX/XX/year>, and You can contact us by calling XXXX or by emailing us at XXXX. 


In other words, under the contract I am instructed to deal directly with Credova to exercise the SGB Option, not XXXX. 

The contract also shows that the total value/ capitalized cost of the product I was leasing was {$460.00}, and that if I do not exercise the early buyout, I would have to make 12 monthly lease payments of {$62.00} plus a final residual payment, for a total of {$740.00} by the end of the lease term. 


This means failing to get the 30-day buyout almost doubles what I have to pay compared to simply paying the early buyout amount. 

On XX/XX/year>, XXXX days before the XX/XX/year> deadline in the contract, I submitted an online payment of {$460.00}, which matches the buyout/ownership amount described above. I was immediately sent an email from Credova Financial LLC confirming the payment. The email subject line/heading is Payment Confirmation. It tells me Great job! Another payment in the books! and lists : Processed on : XX/XX/year> Payment amount : {$460.00} Reference number : XXXX It also states : Please note, it can take up to XXXX ( XXXX ) business days for your payment to post online, and Please allow up to XXXX hours for the payment to process. 


In that same confirmation, they explain that if I need to revoke the payment before it processes, I should contact XXXX XXXX XXXX at XXXX, and that if a payment is returned for any reason you could be subject to NSF fees as outlined in your servicing contract. They also list both XXXX XXXX XXXX and Credova Financial LLC in the footer. 



The lease itself explains that XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX is the XXXX. It says : Your Lease will initially be serviced by XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX ( Servicer ), and it lists the processing fees XXXX XXXX charge for one-time or recurring portal/phone payments. It also says : These fees are not applicable to payments made to exercise any SGB Option. 



The contract also says Your lease can be paid off at any time. Call us anytime to get your payoff amount. 


To summarize the structure of the deal based on the written contract : Credova is the party I must contact to exercise the 30-day Satisfaction Guarantee Buyout Option by XX/XX/year>. 


If I pay the SGB Option amount in full within XXXX days of acceptance, I will own the property outright and [ the ] lease will end. 


XXXX is described as the Servicer, mainly handling payment processing and fees, and the contract even carves out that these XXXX service fees do not apply to SGB Option payments. 


After I made the {$460.00} payment on XX/XX/year> and got the written confirmation with the reference number and the Great job! Another payment in the books! language, I reasonably believed I had successfully exercised the SGB Option within the 30-day period to purchase the product and end the lease.

The confirmation email says the payment would process within 48 hours ( two business days ).

The company should have informed me right away if there was a problem. Instead, I was not told that they considered the payment denied or returned until after XX/XX/year> after the contracts last day to exercise the SGB Option. I attempted to call credova multiple times and they kept telling it could take 7-10 business days so they told me to wait. I attempted to contact XXXX XXXX by phone just in case, but it was impossible to reach a live representative. I only received a response after I emailed them out of desperation after the deadline passed! 

When I finally heard from them, instead of honoring the {$460.00} payoff, I was told I now owed a much higher balance ( hundreds more, closer to the total $ XXXX lease cost ) and that I should have tried to pay again before the due date. That is not what the contract says. The contract says I had until XX/XX/year> to exercise the SGB Option by contacting Credova, and that if I pay that amount in full within two days of them accepting it, I own the property and the lease ends. 



In other words : I made the SGB Option payment attempt on XX/XX/year>. 


I got written confirmation and a reference number from Credovas own system, and was told it would process within 48 hours.

I contacted credova successfully They did not tell me within those XXXX hours that anything failed. 

They only told me after XX/XX/year> ( after the deadline in the contract ) so they could say I missed the SGB Option and now owe more.

Because of this delay and refusal to honor the {$460.00} payoff, I am being told I owe a much larger amount and I am now getting contacted for collection on that amount. This feels like unfair and deceptive servicing and collection : they accepted my buyout payment request, waited until after the buyout window expired to claim it failed, and then attempted to collect a higher balance.

I consent to the CFPB publishing this description ( with personal info removed ) so other consumers can see how this happened.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation