10
Jun
I like sticking up for the little guy. I really do.
So, when it came to taking a look at Wells Fargo Auto Finance, I was prepared to join the chorus of dissatisfied customers who have nothing but bad things to say about the company. Seriously, I was ready to lash out at those Wells Fargo bums with all my might. After all, they must be a horrible company–so many people hate them. Plus, recent news of predatory lending practices in Wells Fargo’s mortgage outfit gave me reason to believe they were probably bad in the auto field, too.
Well, when I started taking a closer look at the litany of complaints about the company, I realized that many of them weren’t the kind of thing I could get behind. Note even close.
I did find at least two areas in which Wells Fargo has REALLY blundered. I also found the kind of half-assed customer service we’ve all regrettably learned to expect from a big ol’ company these days.
Overall, though, it doesn’t seem as though Wells Fargo Auto Finance is owned and operated by Satan. It’s certainly not the best outfit in history, but it isn’t monstrous, either.
Let’s start with the criticisms.
When you buy a new car with a loan, the lender requires that you carry appropriate insurance. That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is a company that fails to appropriately log who has provided proof of adequate insurance and who has not. That seems to be a Wells Fargo problem.
A complaint at ComplaintsBoard.com is a good representation of what’s been happening. People provide the proof of insurance, Wells Fargo fails to note it correctly, Wells Fargo bills the individual for the price of insuring the vehicle. Then, the person provides proof of insurance again. That’s followed by Wells Fargo again billing the customer. The process repeats itself until the beleaguered car buyer either gets lucky or screams at enough people.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in a complaint like that most of the time, but it’s a recurring theme with Wells Fargo Auto Finance. It’s bad enough that at least one lawyer is trying to drum up enough annoyed, frustrated and overbilled people to start up a class action lawsuit.
The other aforementioned problem is the fact that Wells Fargo doesn’t offer the kind of customer service people would like. I’m not talking about those who want the company to double over backwards for them, either. I’m talking about folks who’d just like to see an error corrected or who need a little basic information. If you scan the complaints about the lender, you’ll find people with sorts of issues (major and minor) having a hard time getting the right information from the right people. That’s not unique to WF, of course, but the overall miserable state of customer service elsewhere doesn’t justify it. And it’s particularly true when a company couples bad CS with very aggressive collection practices.
So, I’m not ready to say that Wells Fargo Auto Finance is a super-duper wonderful company. Not by a long stretch. However, I found that many of the criticisms levied against the firm were about as close to baseless as you can get. For instance, you have people who are up in arms over the way WF is “not customer oriented” reached that conclusion after it took awhile for the lender to agree to allow the customer to defer a loan payment due to a layoff. Not to sound like Ebeneezer Scrooge or anything, but I don’t see why letting people out of their obligations for the sake of being nice (and losing cash flow in the process) should be a component of good customer service.
People who fall behind on their payments after agreeing to loan terms suddenly expect the lender to do whatever it takes to make their lives easier, without displaying much interest in taking personal responsibility.
My conclusion: Wells Fargo Auto Finance is a big company that has a hard time getting the details right the first time. They have questionable customer service skills and are a little too quick to turn up the heat when it comes to collections, considering the likelihood that the apparent billing issue could be due to their own error.
However, many of the more pointed gripes about the lender are closer to being whines than legitimate reasons to do business elsewhere. I don’t know if they deserve the A+ rating you can find at Better Business Bureau sites, but they’re not bad enough to hate.
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Have you ever had to personally deal with this company at all?? It would appear that you have not. I’m positive that better service and rates can be found almost anywhere else.
May 7th I received a letter from Wells Fargo Auto finance that read as follows
Dear Chris Montgomery
This letter is further to your conversation with our office on May 4th 2009 where you requested a payout for the above noted lease account.
In response to your request we can confirm the payout required to pay the above mentioned amount in full is $2061.62 See the breakdown below:
Principle $1590.73
Termination Administration Fee: $250.00
Total before taxes: $1840.73
GST $92.04
PST $128.85
Total Due $2061.62
Although your contract was negotiated in Ontario, our records indicate you are now
Residing in British Columbia. As such, we have used British Columbia’s PST rate of 7% Moreover this payout is valid provided:
The payment is received by May 26th 2009
All previous payments or payments currently in process are cleared by your bank.
If a payment is returned we retain the right to revise the above mentioned payout balance
Upon receipt of this payment we will send a request to discharge our lein within 10 days
Once we have confirmation our lien has been discharged a package will be mailed to you
Containing a signed ownership, bill of sale, copy of lease agreement and a paid in full letter.
This package will be mailed to you within 30 days of receiving your payment
I trust this information is satisfactory. Should you have any questions please contact our office
At 1-866-632-1215
Even though I did not agree with there payout figure as it has been constantly changing. I paid $1061.62 on May 18th and another $1000 on May 23rd to finally be rid of these scammers. Imagine my surprise when I receive an invoice for $252.75 In my mail that I received. June 9th. I called there office today to have this reversed and the original arrangement honoured to no avail. I spoke with there customer service and there payment department and there payment department informs me that this figure is now $281. I have always paid this account on time and I am sure that this same thing is happening to many consumers out there. I hope that you are interested in doing a report on something like this as miss behavior of any lending institution especially given the events of the last 12-18 months should be a hot topic for many. I know that if you chose to pursue this that that someone out there may be forced to do something about regulating these individuals. Yes I have a call into my member of parliament as well. I do expect to receive more documentation and many more calls about this issue and I will not let it rest until my voice is heard and I stop them from treating others in this fashion. If you have any questions or require further information please feel free to contact me.
[Reply]
David R. Lampsen reply on June 15th, 2009:
Chris-
Consider your voice heard here!
It wasn’t my intent to paint WF auto finance as the best thing since sliced bread. They do screw up. They may very well have screwed up with you.
There’s an old adage in cattle country. “If you buy a bag of manure, don’t be surprised when it stinks”. I think that holds true for these mega-super-huge auto lenders. They’re big, clunky, and annoying. They have a billion right hands that aren’t always aware of what the billion left hands are doing. They should do a better job with customer service and they should strive to cut down on the number of clerical disasters like the one you’re apparently experiencing.
My point was simply that it doesn’t make them criminal, evil or otherwise dedicated to creating borrower misery. They’re not trying to screw people, they’re just suffering form a certain level of bureaucratic ineptitude. People should be aware of those shortcomings, but I just get tired of seeing so many gripes from people (unlike you) who are basically just wishing that the lender would do whatever they’d like because they made a bad purchase or were unable to pay their bills. Too often, people in that category–and many in yours–use their experiences to claim that the lenders are evil as opposed to stupid.
That being said, thanks for your story and input. I certainly hope you get things worked out–and WF deserves to lose your business if you’re not happy with their performance.
DRL
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I think they are trying to screw people. They refuse to send us a final bill or pictures of a turned in lease car and just want us to send money based on what they say. I have photos of the car completely undamaged. They sent a third party to pick up the car and when we asked about Wells Fargo inspecting it or a sign off from the pick up that it was fine we were told that they dont do that. This is the short story – but they magically lower the amount due from $800+ to $300 when we sent pictures and challenged the quote. They wont let us talk to anyone higher up and wont send us paperwork or pictures. From what I am reading they do things liek this quite a bit.
[Reply]
David R. Lampsen reply on July 21st, 2009:
Mary…
Sorry about your rotten experience. They may be screwing you, but I sincerely doubt that’s their business model. WF and the other finance companies do a lousy job on many levels and there’s always plenty of incompetence to go around, but I don’t think it’s fair to confuse that with a desire to intentionally beat people up.
Of course, I could be wrong. That happened once before. I was convinced that Billy Dee Williams would get an Oscar nomination for his role as Bingo Long in “Bingo Long’s Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings”.
Seriously, I hope things work out for you. And I hope I’m right about WF.
Having previously worked for said company… I certainly understand the short commings. Forced placed collateral insurance was the biggest headache in the world for most of the reps, primarily because the actual LOGGING of the insurance wasn’t done by WF, but rather another corporate sized insurance company (done this way, I assumed, so that when they do not recieve proof of insurance, they can place a policy and bill WF) but of course there are too many hangs in the pot to effectively track everything the first time and THEN the issue becomes removing the additional amount from the bill and everything accompanying that process. Most people that were continued to be billed after providing proof of insurance was more likely due to the absurd amount of time it took WF’s insurance company to clear the policy and refund WF and then WF to update and re ammortize the loan payments, than it not being logged the second time. There really needs to be better communication between the two companies, or at least swifter processing speeds, granted such short commings seem to be associated with the workings of “big business.”
I wish I could blame all the customer service woes on training and what not, but really from my experience most reps were not concerned with understanding why/how a problem occured so they were not capable of adequately explaining to customers the answers they were seeking. I personally found it to be quite interesting to understand all the why’s and what for’s that happened back end and was usually able to answer questions with a certain amount of depth. Honestly true concern, for anything other than good handle times from a call center rep, is rare at best.
Another thing customers seem to forget when dealing with the woes of WF Auto Finance… is they DIDN’T choose wells fargo auto finance as a lender. The dealers use a system to send applications to tons of banks from the dealership, when wells fargo’s offer works the best for their deal thats the one they present to their customer. By this virtue they end up servicing millions of loans… with 2 call centers that house maybe 100-200 reps, and less people working on processing the corrections and other paperwork. Its no wonder its a clunky system, that doesn’t feel like personal service.
[Reply]
Anybody who claims Wells Fargo is not the worst company to deal with obviously never dealt with them. I had more issues then you could imagine with these people and I am not alone. You can never mail them anything they “will not receive it.” That includes payments, they never received any payment I mailed them so they would call demanding I pay them over the phone (and pay a fee of course) to avoid a late fee. They would start calling a day after it was due. You make the payment, pay the fee and it comes out of your bank account the next day but not credited to you account until it is late enough to charge a late fee. The collateral insurance is just absolutely ridiculous and really put a dent on my credit. I never knew they thought I didn’t have insurance until their collection agency called demanding payment saying I have been over 31 days past due for a few months. They were receiving payments however they took my payments and applied it to their insurance. I paid well over $10,000 to them and not even $2000 came off my principal. The interest and principle amount varied every month and some months my whole payment applied to principal. When they started their insurance mess I was then expected to pay over $1000 a month to keep my minivan between my insurance their insurance and my monthly payment. They already put a nice dent on my credit with no cares so I told them to come take it, they finally did 3 months later. I have told many people to never deal with them and I know I have stopped many people from dealing with them and will continue to do so before anybody else gets trapped into the shady stuff they pull.
[Reply]
I went through the lease end process like Mary did but had a great lasting impression. They went out of their way to help me and explained the process in full. I was satisified. Mary’s whole tone of her post is negative and rather than saying in the end they worked with me and helped me resolve the dispute she still ends negative.
Wells Fargo is far from perfect like any other big banking center out there but I can’t imagine them waking up and saying let’s pull a list of customer accounts and screw them today. Some of the responsibility lies with us the consumer as well as them the banks. Am I the only one that still thinks this way or does everyone want something for nothing or bailed out when they over indulge?
My three cents worth and you can keep the change.
RJ
[Reply]
David R. Lampsen reply on December 12th, 2009:
Roger-
That’s the thing. For every person who has a miserable experience, how many end up being happy? It’s hard to tell because most of the folks who have experiences like yours don’t say anything. I’m not excusing the bad experiences, of course. I just think it’s important to maintain a balanced perspective on these matters.
Thanks for the comment,
DRL