I purchased my vehicle in January 2008. I joined the Army in February 2008. I never missed or was late on a payment. Prior to deploying to Iraq, I set up an allotment to pay the car note through First Citizens Bank in Radcliffe, KY (the bank that Drive told me to go through, plus my wife was pregnant, I figured it be one less thing for her to worry about.) In October, I sent an extra payment in so I wouldn't fall behind (payment is due the 29th of each month, I get paid on the first.) Also, prior to deploying, I faxed them a copy of my enlistment contract and a copy of my deployment orders so I could take advantage of the Service Members Civil Relief Act, thus dropping my interest rate to 6%. That fax was lost. During deployment, my wife received calls several times a day with them saying the payments were late (I paid a month ahead, how is this possible?) My wife faxed them the same paperwork for the SCRA, and made another extra payment. Again the fax was lost, and the second extra payment magically disappeared.
My wife continued receiving the calls and making calls herself. Somehow, our home number was blocked from their system and she could no longer contact anyone in that company, not to mention the number of times she was hung up on. When I came home for R&R and the birth of our child, I purchased a prepaid cell and called Drive/Santander. They told me that everything was good and current and that there was no issue, then proceeded to hang up on me when I requested that the harassing calls my wife was receiving be stopped. So I should be two months ahead on my car payment (the extra payment I sent in back in October 08, and the second extra payment my wife sent in December 08.) I pulled my credit report from all three bureaus from annualcreditreport.com, and all three bureaus have me reported as be 30 days delinquent 11 of the last 20 months, and that I owe nearly $500 in fees. I called customer service about this and was redirected to their Credit Department.
The woman at customer service was as cordial and nice as could be, while the woman in the credit department had no clue as to what I was saying (I felt like I was talking to a brick) and was rude. All I wanted to know was what month things started going awry according to them. Customer service lady said the missing payment was in October (a lot of paperwork went missing that month, my initial fax and extra payment,) while the credit department lady said it was September and the extra payment I made was applied to that (bogus, I have the bank statement that shows the September check was cashed the 27th, 2 days prior to my due date.) Today I get a call from Santander saying that I missed a payment in March 09, six months after I started my allotment. I have statements from First Citizens stating all payments were made, and all the receipts from Drive/Santander (except March), I also have copies of my LES' from the time I started the allotment.
When I asked who I could email the PDF file to so this could be resolved and cleared up, I was told that no one there has an email account. Pretty hard to believe that in a digital world a company, who has a website, doesn't have email accounts to their departments. So once again, I have to fax my enlistment contract, deployment orders, and now all of my proof of payment to these people for them to lose, or shred, or what ever they do to avoid doing the right thing. If anyone knows what I can do, or someone I can talk to in the State of Illinois (where I purchased the car) please respond.
Why file a report here? Ripoff Report is a permanent record! Other complaint sites copy our content then remove reports for money.
