Short version: my auto loan and associated servicing just got sold to Santander Consumer USA. Whilst this happens all the time, I was surprised considering that I was only six months from paying off the loan entirely.
The letter informing me of my new prison wardens for the loan was dated 21 Feb 2020 but I didn’t find out this was happening until it arrived on 06 Mar 2020 when I’m literally getting in the Traverse to head to High Point with Katie. This is with the next payment being due in six days and the notice in my hand said the transfer was already effective on 02 Mar 2020.
I’ve spent the last three days trying to figure out what in the hell was going on! Five calls to the previous servicer who had given no indication this was coming…not surprising when a supervisor working at the parent bank found out all of the auto loans had been sold off on 18 Dec 2020.
Four hours of forensic accounting later to ensure that at least the balance was correct (because in the letter and on Santander’s website, it was wrong!)…then it’s time to call Santander Consumer USA.
Now, having scoured the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau website as well as others on regulations governing notice of sale of loans/servicing, it seems to me that CFPB expects a timely notification (though they don’t explicitly say what it should be) but the closest analogue to an auto loan is a closed-end mortgage and RESPA/Regulation X mandates 15 days prior to effective date. That would be 18 Feb 2020 (calendar days) or 12 Feb 2020 (business days).
So I’m pretty sure they’ve broken at least two regulations (timely notice and factually incorrect information).
And before I make the call, I kind of want to know what I’m dealing with. Now, reviews of loan servicers and debt collectors are never going to be amazeballs awesome without serious astroturfing going on but even allowing for that low expectation, Santander appears to be literally at the bottom of that very yucky barrel.
Quelle surprise that the first person I talk to is rude and a jerk and then her supervisor is completely obtuse and thick and refuses to accept that they’ve done anything wrong, much less illegal. She kicks it up to “higher management” for resolution but I predicted for her that they would be equally useless and obtuse.
Having just gotten off the phone with a member of their “executive team”…I can confirm that those suspicions were well-founded.
And THAT is why I filed a 26-page brief with CFPB alleging their violations of the notification regulations and invited them to send their examiners over to Santander. By the time those inquisitive busybodies are done with them…Santander will probably wish that they had just cleared my lien and handed over the title because the likely investigation and possible fines will be at least ten times as much.
It would be lovely if people in “customer service” will learn that we don’t actually have to do things the hard way if they’d do a lot less barking and stonewalling and a lot more listening, understanding, and try to make right what was a readful first impression.
It’s times like that when I REALLY understand Marcel’s frustration in the movie “Rio”.
IDIOTS!