It's My Way or the Highway, in my Prius
Current mood: aggravated
A little customer service will go a long way.
Having worked most of my life in a Sales position I find it very annoying when someone can not take care of an issue that was simple to defuse in the beginning. It goes to a level that should have never happened.
Thrsday morning I was in a pretty good mood, getting ready to go to work, when the phone rings. I pick it up and the person on the other side is starting off on the offensive. They called to tell my car payment was 2 months delinquent.
I thought this was odd because of 2 reasons. The first was that the loan for the car was set for them to automatically deduct the amount from my checking account at the 15th of each month. However, I had paid the car off two months ago so even that made no sense.
I brought up the fact that I sent a rather large payment to them to pay off the car and she looks and says that the payment was only the principle (Which is the payoff they listed on their website) and not the actual payoff. (Which doesn't really mean too much to me).
I said to her, since you are supposed to withdrawal the amount from my account on a monthly basis, if I didn't pay it off, why didn't you just take out what I owed you, rather than call me and accuse me of being delinquent? She couldn't answer that, but kept saying that I needed to call them next week to arrange payment or I was going to collection. I said, why not just withdrawal the amount from my account now and finish it up. She said they couldn't do anything till next week because they were confused as to the amount owed since I had paid the car off. She kept demanding I call her next week otherwise I was going to collection.
I asked her for a statement showing what was paid and owed and she said she couldn't do that and that if I called next week they would have an amount. I told her that they can call me next week since they called me this week to tell me about a debt that should have been paid off. She said she wouldn't call me and that I had to call her.
Finally out of frustration I told her I wanted someone on who can solve this today. Her Manager came on ready for a fight, rather than willing to listen. He kept arguing with me on how I need to do this their way and call them. I finally said to him to look at things this way. I was willing to pay the difference, if there was one. In Fact, I was willing to pay it right now. What I wasn't willing to do was call them back. I felt that since this was their fault they should bend a little here.
He says you keep saying the word fault. I said yes fault. I said regardless of the "Fault" word I wanted this to go away. I said to him he had my permission to take the funds from my account today or next week if he couldn't today. That I was not calling them back and all he had to do was take the amount out of my account to make it right less the interest that shouldn't be charged since they made the mistake. If he couldn't do it till next week, so be it. Just do it and stop the madness and demands. There was no need for them to argue with me over this for 40 minutes when I was agreeing to pay, just didn't want to remember to call them next week. He finally agreed to do it my way.
If this first person who called me had listened this could have been resolved in 5 minutes. If they had said that they made a mistake and needed the ok to deduct from my account the amount that was due rather than making a silly demand that I had to call them next week. If she was unsure on the whole situation, which she was, she should have offered to call me back with the exact amount or email me the statement I requested. I mean I know they are busy tracking down the dirt bags like me who pay their loans off early and have good credit records.
She stuck to her mission and was not willing to bend from the wants. If she had worked with me a little and listened this could have been solved in 5 minutes. Instead she got frustrated because I wouldn't do it her way and made me frustrated because she wouldn't listen.
I can tell you I won't do business with this company again though.
Oh, by the way, it was Capital One Car loans. I do not endorse their company in any way shape of form.
I feel better now.
