HSBC Auto Finance Unprofessional, Unethical Customer Service Nightmare ripoff California

We purchased a truck a little over a year ago and financed thru HSBC aka Household Finance. At first, we didn't notice anything wrong with our service. Our payments were always made on time, so there was no reason to hear from them. However, on November 29th my husband had a back fusion that will keep him out of work for 6 months. Lucy for us (or so we thought) we had purchased Disability insurance thru the dealership with a company called CDIC. It took a little work to get the payments approved, but on December 29th, they sent a check out for a payment and a half to catch everything up and they agreed to make payments every month until my husband went back to work...great right?

Wrong! Apparently, they've never heard of disability insurance in Malaysia because not only would the customer service rep. refuse to mark the account that the payment was sent out, they refused to acknowlege the photocopy of the insurance check that we sent to them proving we weren't lieing, they actually got nasty with us demanding a payment or they were going to arrange to come take the vehicle!

Mind you, the payment was only 10 days late at this point and they were threatening my poor disabled husband with repossession! 6 times a day! Early mornings, late at night, even on Sunday. They didn't listen to a word we said, never offered to look into why the payment hadn't been received nothing! They were like scripted robots with absolutly no compassion or common sense. As of this writing, they are still calling us, insisting they have not received that insurance check and informing us of all the late fees that are stacking up on the account.

In frustration, we took the truck down to the dealer and traded it in just to get HSBC out of our lives. We actually had to pay the dealer $4,000 to pay the truck off because the payoff was more than what was financed after a whole year of paying $500 per month. Okay, so we just took our loses paid that awful loan off and purchased another vehicle with a reputible bank. That was such a big weight off our shoulders. No more phone ringing off the hook. However, the games were just begining!

Not only are they still calling 6 times a day claiming they haven't received the payment from the insurance company, they are now claiming they've never received the payoff check that was federal expressed 4 days ago (the dealership manager is our neighbor and showed us proof that HSBC has received the check.

The woman my husband spoke to today told him it was quite impossible that a payoff check was mailed on Friday morning because they don't have it and then proceeded to inform my husband that the payoff the dealer obtained would not be honored and would be several hundred dollars more! What do we have to do to end this nightmare?!?! The payoff the dealer obtained did not include the insurance check that's been in the mail for two weeks, so HSBC actually owes us that money back but I see now they're going to nickle and dime it away from us by the time this truck actually gets paid off.

Now not only are we going to have to seek legal assistance, but our credit reports are going to have to be contested because they've already informed us they've reported the late payment, even though it's only 25 days late at this point.

I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy. The collections dept. being in Malaysia make matters even worse because they couldn't possibly have a clue about how to do business in a country they don't live in and I won't even get into the severe communication problems due to not only the very heavy accents but also the lack of training and understanding.

I will update as things progress. In the mean time, stay away from HSBC Auto Finance!!!

Cathy
Danville, Virginia
U.S.A.