Triad Financial Yet another dissatisfied customer. Huntington Beach California

My husband and I would definitely love to be involved with a class action lawsuit against Triad. They have caused us quite a number of problems. I have searched the web and can find very few class action suits against Triad and none current.

Our trouble with Triad started right away. The payments were $100 higher than we were told they would be, but we could still make them so we did it anyway. Triad then took over two months to pay off the balance on our trade in vehicle, which had been rolled into Triads loan for the new van.

(Before I become a target of the holier than thous out there, we ended up with Triad as financing because Triad was the main financer for the dealership where we bought our van. This dealership went out of business less than a year later with multiple lawsuits filed against it. One of the main complaints was a finance bait and switch. They would set up a contract with their bank and then after the customers had already taken the new vehicle home (and in many cases after their trade in had been sold), switched the loan to Triad by telling the customer that the bank had found a problem and wouldnt finance the vehicle, but that they found a different bank to finance and had them come in and sign new paperwork, usually at higher interest rates. Since the customers already had the vehicle, their choices were to sign the new loan or return the vehicle, leaving them with no vehicle as their trade in had already been sold. Yes, this is what happened to us, and we were too young and inexperienced to know better.)

No matter when we sent in payments, miraculously they were always late. Even when we sent them in 3 weeks early! Each month we received phone calls that our payments were late. Sometimes, our bank showed the payments cleared before the due date, but Triad insisted that they did not receive the payment until after. Triad called our relatives and friends, supposedly looking for us. They knew where we were. They were harassing us at home and work at the same time they were calling our relatives and friends. Mind, these are people for whom we had never given contact information to Triad.

At one point, when my husband lost his job, we requested and were granted a 3-month extension, for which we paid a fee and accumulated interest in advance for them to set up. Soon thereafter, my husband got a new job. We returned to making our payments on time or early. Triad returned to denying they received them until after the due date and then adding the late fees.

I have a degenerative medical condition that now prevents me from working, but was just beginning to manifest about the time we were 4 years into our 66 month contract. We fell behind by one payment, but made a payment arrangement with Triad. Three days later they repossessed our van anyway. They came and took it from my work parking lot without even notifying me. A co-worker came in and asked if I had called a tow truck because one was out in the lot hooking up to my van.

Triad kept harassing us even after the repossession. They never gave us the option to redeem our van. Never even told us we had the right to. We did not find that out until after they had sold the van.

We received harassing phone calls at home two to three times daily, sometimes more, starting as early as 6am, and continuing as late as 9:30pm. They made phone calls to both of us at work. Even after we told them we could not receive personal calls at work, they would not end the call or stop calling. Even after we notified them in writing to not call, they kept harassing us. My employer took advantage of Triads harassing phone calls and I was fired from my job due to excessive personal phone calls and handling personal business on company time.

Triad sold the van after they repossessed it and, by the contract, we were responsible for the balance still owed. When Triad told us what we owed we discovered that additional was added on to our total for interest from the extension, above what was paid at the time. Now here is the fun math. Our original balance was $23,277 in a 6 year loan. We paid on the van for 4 years at $595 per month, for a total of $32,130 in payments (not counting the extension fee and advanced interest we already paid) before Triad repossessed it. They sold the van for over $18,000. Yet somehow, after adding the $18,000 to the $32,130 we had already paid (totaling over $50,000), Triad claimed that we still owed $13,878!!

We were forced to declare bankruptcy in December of 2005 due to this and medical bills from my disability. When an account is included in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, it is supposed to be removed from the credit reports as it is no longer a valid debt. Triad never removed their report from our credit reports. Currently one of my reports shows $23,227 as a high balance, no current balance, and notes Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Another one shows $0 as a high balance, no current balance, and notes Chapter 7. My husbands one report shows $23,227 as a high balance, $13,878 current balance, and is marked as Charged off! His other reports dont show the account at all. Tell me that is not a screwed up reporting situation. So even after we have nothing more owed to Triad, they are still destroying our credit.

We would love to be involved with a class action. At this point, we are not even looking for any compensation, just to have them remove the old information from our credit reports so we can actually move ahead with our lives again.

M. Jordan
Portage, Michigan
U.S.A.