Consumer complaint received 2024-09-21 00:00:00
Product: Vehicle loan or lease — Loan
Issue: Managing the loan or lease — Billing problem
Company: SANTANDER HOLDINGS USA, INC.
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
I have a fairly recent auto loan through Santander Consumer USA. They have presently blocked me from ACH payments in favor of fee-only options. The due date is the XXXX of each month. The first payment was due on XX/XX/XXXX. I attempted to set up ACH transfer from my bank that has a XXXX digit account number. The first attempt was on XX/XX/year> with a XXXX time payment. This was not able to be processed according to their systems. It is possible I mis-typed an account number. On XX/XX/XXXX I attempted to set up a recurring automatic payment using the same external account. According to what I saw it was set up correctly. I contacted Santander on XX/XX/XXXX when I noticed that they did not remove the funds from the external account. Santander did not provide any notice that the automatic payment set up on XX/XX/XXXX had not been successful. The customer service agent I spoke with was able to successfully process an ACH transfer using the XXXX digit account number. The same customer service agent stated they cancelled my automatic payment, deleted the information from the system and told me to try setting it up again at a later date. 

I attempted to pay my loan installment on XX/XX/XXXX. There was no option for ACH transfer. No notices were in my account about why there was not the option for that. I had not received any communication from Santander about being denied XXXX transfers. I called XXXX times on XX/XX/XXXX. The first time I was told that a system update in late XXXX had cleared people 's automatic payment information. The second time I was told that the payment had been returned as insufficient funds. I called my external bank and confirmed that there had been no insufficient funds returns on the account used to pay Santander. On the XXXX call I was able to reach XXXX in the " XXXX assistance '' ( sic ) area. She told me that the reason I was not able to make ACH payments was that the automatic payment from XX/XX/XXXX previously described as cancelled on XX/XX/XXXX had returned as " insufficient funds '' on XX/XX/XXXX. This was the reason I was barred from making XXXX payments and only had fee-only options. This " insufficient funds '' payment was the one I had been alternatively told by lower level customer service representatives that had been removed either by a system update or had been manually cancelled on XX/XX/XXXX. She did say that I could make a payment using my external bank 's bill pay service and the payment would not be considered late until XXXX days after the due date. XXXX offered the fee-only option of using a debit card linked to my external account. I mentioned I had my checkbook ready and she " attempted '' to process an ACH payment. This, naturally, did not go through. Later that evening I attempted to use a fee-only option to make a payment to Santander. This payment did not go through either. I eventually resorted to using my external bank 's bill pay to mail a payment to Santander, scheduled to arrive on XX/XX/XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation