Stabbity-Stabbity Stab Stab!!!
This is a rant. I will wax poetic on the antecedents of certain persons, and then on the probability of my continuing business relationship with a specific corporation. Language is guaranteed to be NSFW. You have been warned....
So... those of you who follow my LJ will remember when I posted a few days ago about getting a new vehicle. Nice, pretty vehicle. Picked her up on New Years Eve. Well, this is a follow-up to that.
You see, when I started this whole thing, I called up the financial institution in which I have my Government Checks™ direct deposited. Once upon a time Direct Deposit of Federal Funds used to mean something. Well, it sort of meant they'd give me a car loan.
The APR was less than stellar. The loan officer I spoke to Monday, December 27th said that number is set by some arcane combination of facts which have to do with both the applicant's FICO score and the relevant information about the vehicle itself --age and mileage and something else....resale value, perhaps? Anyway, it was higher than I expected, and a little higher than I wanted, but each new potential financier I asked about getting money from would adversely affect my FICO score anyway, so I ran with it.
"We need a recent pay stub, a copy of your driver's license and the purchase order faxed to us and we'll take care of this. But if the car is what you said it is, you're definitely approved," he said. Well, since I was at work & had the first two items near at hand, I faxed those over with the comment that I'd get a purchase order over to them the following day, since I wanted to confirm that I'd have a loan before committing to anything with the dealer. But I did also fax the dealer's internet ad with the other stuff, in order to show that I wasn't making up any of the pertinent details.
On the morning of Tuesday, December 28th, I went to the dealership before work, cut him a check for a binder/down-payment and got a copy of the purchase order to send to the loan officer. In fact, the dealership faxed it over themselves while I stood there and waited. Great! The ball was rolling & things should be good for me to pick up the car on my weekend (Thursday/Friday for those who skim over my other posts). Sweet!
So then I get an email from my loan officer. He called the dealership because he needed a copy of the title faxed to him before they can process the loan. What? I mean, okay it kinda makes sense to make sure the title is free of other lien holders, but this is the first time I've heard that it was a required part of the loan application. "They told me they'd get it right over to me, but I haven't gotten it yet. Could you call them?"
Not that night, I couldn't. By the time I got home and read the email, the dealership was closed for the night.
So I stopped by the dealership on my way into work again on Wednesday, December 29th. There I was told that they'd been trying to fax the title over, but kept getting error messages. They even showed me the fax machine paperwork to prove they just weren't getting through. I looked and made sure it was the right number, but since they'd taken it right off the cover sheet from the previous day's purchase order fax, that wasn't the issue.
I didn't have the loan officer's direct line number with me, since that was in an email, so I promised the dealership I would call him from work & see what I could set up. (This begins an extensive game of telephonic ping pong, in which =I= was the ball.) I called the loan officer from work, using the opportunity to get his desk phone into my cell's memory chip. He had trouble believing that the fax transmission problem existed, since it was a digital process and the last fax had gotten through just fine. I explained that I had seen the attempts myself, and didn't believe the car salesman had the computer know-how to fake those, was there an alternate fax number we could use. He finally relented and gave me the number of a physical fax machine in his office, with paper and everything, that the dealership could fax the title too.
Great. Called the dealer, gave him the new number. They said they'd get right on it.
Woohoo! This meant that picking the car up Thursday was no longer an option, but Friday was still feasible. Life was still good.
Until I got home and found another email from the loan officer telling me that the purchase order previously faxed wasn't sufficient, since there was no place on the form where it stated that they would hold the lien against the vehicle. Now... this is not my first time at the rodeo, and I have never seen the lien holder's information appear on the purchase order for a used car. It gets put on the title, but not on the purchase order. I've only ever had my name listed as the buyer --thus allowing me to insure the vehicle. Once again, he stated that he had called the dealership and told them of his requirements & once again got no response from them.
::sigh:: I slowly watch my plans to have a new vehicle by the end of my weekend slipping away.
Thursday morning, December 30th, I am off from work & can devote my day to getting this mess straightened out. I call the salesman. He says he has no clue what the loan officer is talking about, as he has never had to put a lien holder on a bill of sale before. He tells me that under the instruction of the loan officer, he created a new purchase order listing the financial institution as the purchaser, and subsequently taking my name off of the form, but he can't believe that's right, as it would then cause issues getting the vehicle registered and insured under my name. He also states that once again, his attempts to fax this form to the loan are failing. At both possible fax numbers.
I again call the loan officer. He says he hasn't gotten the revised purchase order yet. He also tells me that since all else was good to go, once he had that, he could make the appointment with a Notary to come and have me sign the loan agreement. Once that was done, if I also give the Notary a voided check, the funds would be wired into my account within 24 hours of them receiving the form.
OK. I ask again what modification, exactly, they need to the purchase order to advance this. I explained that I had my copy of the original one sent over, and didn't see a place for the information he wanted added. "Just write somewhere on the face of the document that we'll be listed as holding the lien," he tells me. I also ask that since both fax numbers were returning failed transmission info, was there a third alternative. He gives me one.
Deciding that I wasn't going to tie up the salesman any more than I had to, I grab a pen & write the financial institution's information in the spot on the form where any liens against a Trade-In Vehicle would go. I then write "No Trade-In Vehicle" in the year/make/model location above. I take that & head over to Staples, where I proceed to fax the form to ALL THREE fax numbers he'd given me. After getting confirmations for all three transmissions from the nice girl behind the counter, I then proceed to call the loan officer & confirm he got at least one of them.
Yes, he got it. Yes, it meets his needs. He would call the Notary & schedule an appointment as soon as he could. I remind him that the following day in New Years Eve and a bank holiday. He tells me that while it might be a holiday for the branches, both his office & the central loan office in Arizona are open & should be able to process the loan. And he would make certain to find me a Notary that would work on New Years Eve.
So, I call the dealership & ask what their holiday hours are. Especially as it looked like the earliest I'd have the funds in my account was Monday, which put off my ability to pick up the car until at least Tuesday & probably Thursday. I was told that if I wanted, I cold pick up the car and pay with a post-dated check, which they would hold until Monday. I could come in either Thursday or Friday, since they would be closed over the holiday weekend. I mentioned that I wasn't comfortable doing things before the Notary had all the documents in order, so I would see them Friday afternoon.
I get a phone call Thursday night from the Notary, confirming an appointment for 1:00 Friday afternoon. It was a little later than I had wanted, since I knew that if FedEx was open at all, they'd probably close by noon, which would mean the envelope wouldn't even ship until Monday morning. I was assured that no, the FedEx office she worked with was open until 4:00 on New Years Eve, and she would definitely get the envelope to them before they closed. OK. 1:00, it is.
Friday morning, December 31st arrives. I get my stuff ready; photocopy of license? Check. Voided check with EFT number on it? Check. Proof of insurance? Check. I call the dealership & confirm their closing time, so I can make sure to pick up the car before the weekend. The Notary shows up at the house right on schedule. I sign the loan agreement. I sign the title release form showing the lien. I sign the payment schedule agreement. All this I expected. The form where I was supposed to provide three references & their contact information was a surprise, but what the hell. I sign that, too. And the form that will list them as a Payee on my Auto Insurance for this vehicle. And then she shakes my hand and goes along her merry way, once again promising that she would get the envelope to FedEx before they closed.
I call my loan officer and confirm that she has all the paperwork she needed, including a voided check for my account. He confirms that I should have the funds deposited to my account within 24 hours of their receipt of her package. He even tells me that in one case, the borrower had the funds the same day, since the Notary had managed the appointment so early in the day. Knowing that wasn't likely, I merely confirmed that since my account was held by their institution, once the funds were deposited, they would be fully and immediately available; that I wouldn't have to wait until midnight for the money to post to the account. He confirmed that this was the case.
I go and get the car, writing a personal check for the balance due, post-dating it until Monday, January 3rd. The salesman and the sales manager both confirm that they would hold the check for deposit until Monday. I drive off with the new car.
On Monday, January 3rd. I go online to check my bank balance. And the funds aren't there. This was actually not a surprise, as I figured that FedEx wouldn't have delivered the envelope over the weekend. And even if they had, there might not have been a loan auditor to process it. Add to that the fact that it was still 6:00am in Arizona, I was actually OK with this.
But when the funds still aren't in my account at 5:00pm on Monday, I get a little nervous. I call the loan officer. He checks his computer and confirms that the paperwork had arrived and been audited. "It says the funds were approved," he tells me. "You should have it in your account today. Tomorrow morning at the latest."
"By tomorrow morning, you mean that it will post to my account tonight, right? Because I already gave the dealer a check which they are depositing today. And this deposit needs to post before that debit or I have a problem."
"Oh, yes," he says. "That shouldn't be a problem at all."
Tuesday morning, January 4th, I once again check my bank account. There is still no deposit of the funds for the loan. There is also no overdraft fee telling me that the check I wrote to the dealer tried to clear the account. I breathe a sigh of relief. But I'm running a bit late & don't have time to call the loan officer before work. I also get sufficiently distracted at work that I don't check my account again while I'm there.
But when I got home, there was an envelope from FedEx on the table. I start to get worried. It's after 8:00pm, and if this is a check rather than merely a letter of confirmation, I have no chance to get it deposited so that it would post to my account today. Fearing the worst, I open the letter.
And it's even worse than I feared. Not only is it a physical check, rather than merely a letter confirming a deposit to my account. It isn't even a check made out to me. They made the check out to the fucking dealership. So now, there's no way in hell my account will cover the check I gave them when I picked up the car. So I'm probably going to go into overdraft for $6000 tonight, when my check clears. Not to mention the fees for the big check, the binder check, the trip to the gas station to fill the tank, the spare key I had made at Wal-Mart, and the fucking sandwich I had for lunch today. Five transactions are going to fail tonight. At $35 apiece.
On the other hand, they might BOUNCE the big check I gave to the dealer. In which case all the OTHER transactions will clear, but I'll still have the returned check fees from both my bank and the dealership to cover. (This might actually be the better option, since I can then give the dealership the check sitting on my dining room table & they can at least have THEIR money. If the bank PAYS on my check, I currently have no way to recover that $6000.)
And, of course, when I tried to call my son-of-a-bitch loan officer to ask why the hell I gave them a voided fucking check if they were going to pay the dealership instead of me, I got his goddam voicemail. I left the rat-bastard a fairly heated message informing him that this was NOT what we discussed, this was NOT acceptable, and that he was damn well going to fix it. He was going to make certain that the funds were deposited into my account to cover the loan amount AS WELL AS ANY FEES GENERATED BY THIS FIASCO INCLUDING OVERDRAFT CHARGES TO MY ACCOUNT AND RETURNED CHECK FEES FROM THE DEALERSHIP!!!
But even if this does get resolved at no cost to me, I think I'm done with this bank. I haven't been happy with them since they merged up with Wells Fargo last year. And this is definitely the last fucking straw! It wasn't bad enough I had to waste three days chasing down necessary forms that weren't mentioned in the initial email and phone conversations, and then faxing them to numbers that only work intermittently, but then to have the manner of payment so grossly misrepresented as to cause this level of chaos?
Fuck you! Wells Fargo. We are done here. And as soon as I can draw funds from my retirement account that cover the balance of my loan, this relationship is permanently over. I am pulling ALL of my money out of ALL of your corporate partners at my very earliest opportunity.
Unfortunately, there is nothing I or any of my friends can do to fix this. I need them to make this right. And if they don't, I will be very vocal about my displeasure.
So... those of you who follow my LJ will remember when I posted a few days ago about getting a new vehicle. Nice, pretty vehicle. Picked her up on New Years Eve. Well, this is a follow-up to that.
You see, when I started this whole thing, I called up the financial institution in which I have my Government Checks™ direct deposited. Once upon a time Direct Deposit of Federal Funds used to mean something. Well, it sort of meant they'd give me a car loan.
The APR was less than stellar. The loan officer I spoke to Monday, December 27th said that number is set by some arcane combination of facts which have to do with both the applicant's FICO score and the relevant information about the vehicle itself --age and mileage and something else....resale value, perhaps? Anyway, it was higher than I expected, and a little higher than I wanted, but each new potential financier I asked about getting money from would adversely affect my FICO score anyway, so I ran with it.
"We need a recent pay stub, a copy of your driver's license and the purchase order faxed to us and we'll take care of this. But if the car is what you said it is, you're definitely approved," he said. Well, since I was at work & had the first two items near at hand, I faxed those over with the comment that I'd get a purchase order over to them the following day, since I wanted to confirm that I'd have a loan before committing to anything with the dealer. But I did also fax the dealer's internet ad with the other stuff, in order to show that I wasn't making up any of the pertinent details.
On the morning of Tuesday, December 28th, I went to the dealership before work, cut him a check for a binder/down-payment and got a copy of the purchase order to send to the loan officer. In fact, the dealership faxed it over themselves while I stood there and waited. Great! The ball was rolling & things should be good for me to pick up the car on my weekend (Thursday/Friday for those who skim over my other posts). Sweet!
So then I get an email from my loan officer. He called the dealership because he needed a copy of the title faxed to him before they can process the loan. What? I mean, okay it kinda makes sense to make sure the title is free of other lien holders, but this is the first time I've heard that it was a required part of the loan application. "They told me they'd get it right over to me, but I haven't gotten it yet. Could you call them?"
Not that night, I couldn't. By the time I got home and read the email, the dealership was closed for the night.
So I stopped by the dealership on my way into work again on Wednesday, December 29th. There I was told that they'd been trying to fax the title over, but kept getting error messages. They even showed me the fax machine paperwork to prove they just weren't getting through. I looked and made sure it was the right number, but since they'd taken it right off the cover sheet from the previous day's purchase order fax, that wasn't the issue.
I didn't have the loan officer's direct line number with me, since that was in an email, so I promised the dealership I would call him from work & see what I could set up. (This begins an extensive game of telephonic ping pong, in which =I= was the ball.) I called the loan officer from work, using the opportunity to get his desk phone into my cell's memory chip. He had trouble believing that the fax transmission problem existed, since it was a digital process and the last fax had gotten through just fine. I explained that I had seen the attempts myself, and didn't believe the car salesman had the computer know-how to fake those, was there an alternate fax number we could use. He finally relented and gave me the number of a physical fax machine in his office, with paper and everything, that the dealership could fax the title too.
Great. Called the dealer, gave him the new number. They said they'd get right on it.
Woohoo! This meant that picking the car up Thursday was no longer an option, but Friday was still feasible. Life was still good.
Until I got home and found another email from the loan officer telling me that the purchase order previously faxed wasn't sufficient, since there was no place on the form where it stated that they would hold the lien against the vehicle. Now... this is not my first time at the rodeo, and I have never seen the lien holder's information appear on the purchase order for a used car. It gets put on the title, but not on the purchase order. I've only ever had my name listed as the buyer --thus allowing me to insure the vehicle. Once again, he stated that he had called the dealership and told them of his requirements & once again got no response from them.
::sigh:: I slowly watch my plans to have a new vehicle by the end of my weekend slipping away.
Thursday morning, December 30th, I am off from work & can devote my day to getting this mess straightened out. I call the salesman. He says he has no clue what the loan officer is talking about, as he has never had to put a lien holder on a bill of sale before. He tells me that under the instruction of the loan officer, he created a new purchase order listing the financial institution as the purchaser, and subsequently taking my name off of the form, but he can't believe that's right, as it would then cause issues getting the vehicle registered and insured under my name. He also states that once again, his attempts to fax this form to the loan are failing. At both possible fax numbers.
I again call the loan officer. He says he hasn't gotten the revised purchase order yet. He also tells me that since all else was good to go, once he had that, he could make the appointment with a Notary to come and have me sign the loan agreement. Once that was done, if I also give the Notary a voided check, the funds would be wired into my account within 24 hours of them receiving the form.
OK. I ask again what modification, exactly, they need to the purchase order to advance this. I explained that I had my copy of the original one sent over, and didn't see a place for the information he wanted added. "Just write somewhere on the face of the document that we'll be listed as holding the lien," he tells me. I also ask that since both fax numbers were returning failed transmission info, was there a third alternative. He gives me one.
Deciding that I wasn't going to tie up the salesman any more than I had to, I grab a pen & write the financial institution's information in the spot on the form where any liens against a Trade-In Vehicle would go. I then write "No Trade-In Vehicle" in the year/make/model location above. I take that & head over to Staples, where I proceed to fax the form to ALL THREE fax numbers he'd given me. After getting confirmations for all three transmissions from the nice girl behind the counter, I then proceed to call the loan officer & confirm he got at least one of them.
Yes, he got it. Yes, it meets his needs. He would call the Notary & schedule an appointment as soon as he could. I remind him that the following day in New Years Eve and a bank holiday. He tells me that while it might be a holiday for the branches, both his office & the central loan office in Arizona are open & should be able to process the loan. And he would make certain to find me a Notary that would work on New Years Eve.
So, I call the dealership & ask what their holiday hours are. Especially as it looked like the earliest I'd have the funds in my account was Monday, which put off my ability to pick up the car until at least Tuesday & probably Thursday. I was told that if I wanted, I cold pick up the car and pay with a post-dated check, which they would hold until Monday. I could come in either Thursday or Friday, since they would be closed over the holiday weekend. I mentioned that I wasn't comfortable doing things before the Notary had all the documents in order, so I would see them Friday afternoon.
I get a phone call Thursday night from the Notary, confirming an appointment for 1:00 Friday afternoon. It was a little later than I had wanted, since I knew that if FedEx was open at all, they'd probably close by noon, which would mean the envelope wouldn't even ship until Monday morning. I was assured that no, the FedEx office she worked with was open until 4:00 on New Years Eve, and she would definitely get the envelope to them before they closed. OK. 1:00, it is.
Friday morning, December 31st arrives. I get my stuff ready; photocopy of license? Check. Voided check with EFT number on it? Check. Proof of insurance? Check. I call the dealership & confirm their closing time, so I can make sure to pick up the car before the weekend. The Notary shows up at the house right on schedule. I sign the loan agreement. I sign the title release form showing the lien. I sign the payment schedule agreement. All this I expected. The form where I was supposed to provide three references & their contact information was a surprise, but what the hell. I sign that, too. And the form that will list them as a Payee on my Auto Insurance for this vehicle. And then she shakes my hand and goes along her merry way, once again promising that she would get the envelope to FedEx before they closed.
I call my loan officer and confirm that she has all the paperwork she needed, including a voided check for my account. He confirms that I should have the funds deposited to my account within 24 hours of their receipt of her package. He even tells me that in one case, the borrower had the funds the same day, since the Notary had managed the appointment so early in the day. Knowing that wasn't likely, I merely confirmed that since my account was held by their institution, once the funds were deposited, they would be fully and immediately available; that I wouldn't have to wait until midnight for the money to post to the account. He confirmed that this was the case.
I go and get the car, writing a personal check for the balance due, post-dating it until Monday, January 3rd. The salesman and the sales manager both confirm that they would hold the check for deposit until Monday. I drive off with the new car.
On Monday, January 3rd. I go online to check my bank balance. And the funds aren't there. This was actually not a surprise, as I figured that FedEx wouldn't have delivered the envelope over the weekend. And even if they had, there might not have been a loan auditor to process it. Add to that the fact that it was still 6:00am in Arizona, I was actually OK with this.
But when the funds still aren't in my account at 5:00pm on Monday, I get a little nervous. I call the loan officer. He checks his computer and confirms that the paperwork had arrived and been audited. "It says the funds were approved," he tells me. "You should have it in your account today. Tomorrow morning at the latest."
"By tomorrow morning, you mean that it will post to my account tonight, right? Because I already gave the dealer a check which they are depositing today. And this deposit needs to post before that debit or I have a problem."
"Oh, yes," he says. "That shouldn't be a problem at all."
Tuesday morning, January 4th, I once again check my bank account. There is still no deposit of the funds for the loan. There is also no overdraft fee telling me that the check I wrote to the dealer tried to clear the account. I breathe a sigh of relief. But I'm running a bit late & don't have time to call the loan officer before work. I also get sufficiently distracted at work that I don't check my account again while I'm there.
But when I got home, there was an envelope from FedEx on the table. I start to get worried. It's after 8:00pm, and if this is a check rather than merely a letter of confirmation, I have no chance to get it deposited so that it would post to my account today. Fearing the worst, I open the letter.
And it's even worse than I feared. Not only is it a physical check, rather than merely a letter confirming a deposit to my account. It isn't even a check made out to me. They made the check out to the fucking dealership. So now, there's no way in hell my account will cover the check I gave them when I picked up the car. So I'm probably going to go into overdraft for $6000 tonight, when my check clears. Not to mention the fees for the big check, the binder check, the trip to the gas station to fill the tank, the spare key I had made at Wal-Mart, and the fucking sandwich I had for lunch today. Five transactions are going to fail tonight. At $35 apiece.
On the other hand, they might BOUNCE the big check I gave to the dealer. In which case all the OTHER transactions will clear, but I'll still have the returned check fees from both my bank and the dealership to cover. (This might actually be the better option, since I can then give the dealership the check sitting on my dining room table & they can at least have THEIR money. If the bank PAYS on my check, I currently have no way to recover that $6000.)
And, of course, when I tried to call my son-of-a-bitch loan officer to ask why the hell I gave them a voided fucking check if they were going to pay the dealership instead of me, I got his goddam voicemail. I left the rat-bastard a fairly heated message informing him that this was NOT what we discussed, this was NOT acceptable, and that he was damn well going to fix it. He was going to make certain that the funds were deposited into my account to cover the loan amount AS WELL AS ANY FEES GENERATED BY THIS FIASCO INCLUDING OVERDRAFT CHARGES TO MY ACCOUNT AND RETURNED CHECK FEES FROM THE DEALERSHIP!!!
But even if this does get resolved at no cost to me, I think I'm done with this bank. I haven't been happy with them since they merged up with Wells Fargo last year. And this is definitely the last fucking straw! It wasn't bad enough I had to waste three days chasing down necessary forms that weren't mentioned in the initial email and phone conversations, and then faxing them to numbers that only work intermittently, but then to have the manner of payment so grossly misrepresented as to cause this level of chaos?
Fuck you! Wells Fargo. We are done here. And as soon as I can draw funds from my retirement account that cover the balance of my loan, this relationship is permanently over. I am pulling ALL of my money out of ALL of your corporate partners at my very earliest opportunity.
Unfortunately, there is nothing I or any of my friends can do to fix this. I need them to make this right. And if they don't, I will be very vocal about my displeasure.