Considering Chase Auto Finance Complaints

16 Jun

chase Not too long ago, I wrote a post about Wells Fargo auto finance. I noticed a few complaints about their practices and decided to find out more about them. I concluded that they had some pretty significant shortfalls and certainly were far from perfect, but that they were probably miscast as 100% unadulterated evil devil spawn. Many of the complaints were of the “I don’t like the fact I borrowed too much money and they’re not nice about my inability to pay” variety.

So, I asssumed the same thing would probably be true of Chase Auto Finance. “CAF” is a division of the big ol’ JP Morgan Chase Bank conglomerate and they’re in the business of loaning folks money when it’s time to pick out a new set of wheels. After looking at the situation with Chase, my initial suspicions were basically confirmed. They certainly aren’t perfect, but they don’t appear to be sadistic evildoers hellbent on crushing the spirits of borrowers.

If you look through the list of complaints about Chase at sites like ConsumerAffairs.com, you’ll find that most of them fall into one of two categories.

There are entirely legitimate gripes about things Chase has screwed up. Clerical errors, annoying miscalculations and other problems litter the list. These are black marks against a lender and those “little” mistakes can produce monumental migraines for the consumers who are just trying to do things the right way. There are some pretty credible arguments out there about Chase’s lack of consistency and customer service abilities.

At the same time, we’ve all learned to expect that sort of thing from big giant, faceless companies. It stinks, but it’s true. The bigger a company gets, the more bureaucracy they have and the more likely they seem to be to screw up the details. It’s a good reason to look for the personal touch. It’s a good reason to have reservations about dealing with Chase, Wells Fargo or any other Big Bank. It’s not a sign of hate, vindictiveness or pure sleaziness, however.

The second group of complaints are the kind that REALLY irritate me. They are based primarily on the desire of consumers to do whatever the hell they want, regardless of the terms of their loan agreement. You’ll see people whining about Chase’s repossession fees, the fact that they now owe more on cars than what they are worth (which, as we all should know is about as common as snow at Aspen) and the fact that Chase isn’t willing to “work with them” enough when they’re unable to pay their bills. There are also those who aren’t very happy that Chase Auto Finance is pretty serious about getting paid and will take an aggressive collections posture when people don’t pay.

These complaints are annoying for a few reasons. Initially, they allow real complaints to get lost in the shuffle. It’s hard to discover the real reasons to be wary of some lenders when you’re sorting through page after page of “I made a bad deal and wish the lender would adjust the terms to meet my whims” stuff. Additionally, it makes you think of all the time Chase and others need to spend with these people–time that could be devoted to doing other things correctly, thus decreasing the number of legitimate gripes.

I’m beginning to think that the bottom line when it comes to Chase Auto Finance or any other auto finance company boils down to the following…

The customer service is weaker than it should be. Errors are more common than they should be. You can’t expect them to help you out if you need a hand and the odds of experiencing some kind of annoying, head-spinning incident involving tons of phone calls, lost paperwork and confusion is directly proportional to the number of things you do that might be even slightly out of the ordinary.

If you pay every month at the same time in the same way without making any special requests or doing anything out of the ordinary, you’ll probably have a nice smooth go of things. If you deviate at all from that course, you’ll probably want to invest in a bottle of Tylenol.

That’s the annoying truth about Chase and all of the other big lenders out there. If you want personal service and a little more human interaction from a smaller-scale company, take your business elsewhere. Be forewarned, though, you might pay an extra point or so in interest for the privilege.