Capital One Auto Finance

I purchased a car from a local car dealer. It was a birthday present for my wife. We had the car for over three years. My wife was so proud of it and kept it in mint condition. Even the dealership where it was serviced was amazed at the condition and low mileage. Over the three years, the car loan was sold twice. Both companies were great. The third and final company to aquire the loan was Capital One. I became ill requiring a short hospital stay, but was unable to work for a couple of weeks. I became a month behind on my payment. At this point, someone called from the collection dept. informing me of the deliquency. I explained my situation and the reason for the delay in payment. At her advice, she told me that I could waive a payment. She explained that doing so would "help me out." I thought it was a done deal. Believing that I had waived one payment, I was still behind approaching the end of the second month. I informed Capitol One that payment would be in their office by Friday. About four days for my check to reach them. This was on Tuesday. An hour after midnight, I awoke, not being able to return to sleep. I noticed the car missing from the driveway. I awoke my wife to ask if she had moved it. "No," she replied. I called the police to report it stolen, having no reason to believe any action from Capitol One had been involved. The police searched a couple of days for the missing car, until one of my neighbors informed me that she had been returning home late and saw the car on a tow truck. I called Capital One. They informed me that they had repo'ed the car and if I wanted it back, I had to pay three months of payments within seven days. The month I was told the payment had been waived, the current month, and the next month in advance, plus all towing fees and storage costs involved. This resulted in a total car payment of over 1800 dollars! At that point, I only had the current month due and would not have the money within the time period. I requested information from Capital One as to the return of the contents. I was given a phone number to Recovery One, Capital One's exclusive repo company. They charged me 40 dollars to return the contents and would not let me even see the car. It was kept in a secure area, hidden from anyone's view. The repo company was required by law to report a repo within 4 hours of which they did not do. That would have saved the local police dept several days of work. They also damaged the transmission by dragging the car in park for 80 feet before loading it on a tow truck. This was witnessed by another neighbor who came forward. I bought the car for 14,000 dollars, of which 18,000 of principal and interest had already been paid. Capitol One sold the car at an auto action for 4,000 dollars, bringing the amount to 21,000 dollars. I only owed another 3,000 beyond that for interest. Capital One took that amount and added another 2,000 to it for repo and storage fees! They charged me 2,000 dollar to repo my car! The car was on a five year finance with only a little over a year to go. The bottom line for me: I paid 21,000 dollars for a car I no longer own!!!!!! AND Capital One has turned me over to legal collections to get another five thousand dollars! Not only did they leave us without a car, but to settle this matter with Capital One I will have paid over twenty six thousand dollars for something I don't even own!!!!! It broke my wife's heart to lose a car that she cherished as her birthday present. It was the "newest" model she had ever "owned." It sure made me feel terrible, to say the least. Having a 4 year payment history, I couldn't believe that they "lied" to me promising to waive one month's payment and then taking the car. I guess that's how they sponser TV shows like "Who Wants To Be A Millionare!" I no longer watch that TV show. I guess because I now know how Capital One makes their money to sponsor it. They use their money, power and legal dept to manipulate every dime from people they can. In anyway they can. At first I was angry beyond words and filled with rage. I can't imagine how their employees sleep at night. I would rather sleep on the sidewalk than make my living carrying out such business practices. Something positive did come out of all this. I now search for Christian based, owned and operated companies to do my business with.......

_____

All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.

Comment On This

I'm a late stage collection agent for capital one... I work accounts from 60 to 94 days past due. First off I guarantee it was way more then one or two attempts to contact you. Seen as I will personally try to contact someone past due on their loan by more then 60 days at least 15 times a day, which is what is permitted by law. Since I work for a 3rd party for collections of capital one auto loans however, I do not have to abide by that law, (speaking of fdcpa here) although my site does require us to abide by it as much as possible which we do.

Anyways my point in addressing you is... BY the time you get to 90 days past due you are wellllll aware of what is happening. Our units go out for repo between 79 to 94 days past due, had you listened to the collection reps when they called you, you would have known exactly what was going on and when it was going to happen.

Secondly the repo companies that we employee will make every attempt to contact you first before they secure our unit, if you are avoiding every single unknown number that calls you, then it is your own fault you did not know the tow truck was coming.

Thirdly in order to get an extension to process you MUST be employeed in working and have steady income. I dont know what happened here but I promise you they did not tell you they would "waive" the payment. It is not in our vocabulary... WE dont let you have payments or months for free. WE will however offer to extend a payment to the end of your loan usually for a fee of $25 to $35. In order to do this in most states you MUST complete a signed letter authorizing us to do this because your payment, since it is unpaid, will cause a balloon payment at the end of your loan since you are still tacking interest on to that payment since you did not pay it. Also if you bounce a payment (check over the phone debit card mailed payment ect) or do not make your next due dated payment on time the ext is not going to process either.....

These are all things that you MUST pay attention to when you choose to fall behind on a loan payment. I say choose because you should have had at least three payments already saved up in the bank in case of something like this happening. But I know not everyone can be this prepared but had you planned ahead on each bill by at least three months which is a good rule to always go by, none of this would have happened.....

End of story.

Comment On This

I was three car payments behind. The car was repossessed June 1st. Capital One never sent me any correspondence indicating their intentions. Prior to the repo, my plan was to make two payments on June 4th. I choose not to talk to Capital One because of their UNFAIR practices - they call my home and cell number constantly after I've asked them repeatedly in the past not to do that - send me written communication. They have repeatedly called my job, where I CANNOT take calls. I have repeatedly asked them not to do this, but it continues. The last call to my job was the week of May 17th 2010. After the vehicle was repo'd my wife called to see what we would do to get the car back. We were told after 15 days from the repossession the vehicle would be sent to auction. We also recv'd written correspondence. We expressed our intention to get the car back, and asked for full disclosure of the procedures we must follow. June 7, 2010 the arrears money was Moneygramed to Capital One...we were told the vehicle had been sent to auction...8 days before their stated policy. We have to go to another city to retrieve our belongings and another place to get the vehicle, all this after we talked with company representatives.

Comment On This

I am not sure what you are all talking about sounds like some bad luck or something.... I have a Credit Card with low int% as well as 2 auto loans with capitol one been capitol one 2 years called them up asked them if they could bump the December payments back a payment for the holidays... a total of over $600 between the two vehicles with no problem they did. I just want to make sure for other people out there Capitol One is a great company They did not become such a big company by ripping every one off and no local bank would touch there intrest rate at the time 3.76%

Comment On This

Hi,

I will admit I did let my car payment get behind for 90 days but I was struggling financially at the time. Before the wire, I got my payment to them to cover the amount due. It was in the repossession department but had not been taken from me at the time so I got the payment in just in time right. Wrong? They waited a week after I made the entire payment and re'poed my car. Apparently I was suppose to talk to the reinstatement people to get it reinstated.Okay first off, if I had the car why would I need it reinstated, secondly why wouldnt they tell me, transfer me to that department or something. What a bunch of *******.

Comment On This

Promise to skip a payment and it never happens. The reason I am behind is not working do to a injury and having two back surguries. 3 years never late. new one,, set up remander of payment 309.00. get email payment says 490.00? call them "sorry cant cancel" explain I never approved amount. 490.00 is what I paid already, 309.00 was what was left and agreed upon one payment..There response was it better go threw or it will be repo and hung up on me!!! great customer service there

Comment On This

This person is right on the mark. We have a 2003 Toyota with Capitol one. We refinanced from Americredit ( stay away from them,trust me) We had a perfect payment history until Dec 2007. WE went threw a bad ice storm,no power for 3 days. I call capitol one and was promised they would do a one time waiver of any late charges.Jan 2008 rolled around we started getting phone call 8-15 calls a day. each day i spoke with someone and a little while later someone else would call.I went on line paid the payment and was still getting calls about late fees for Dec 2008. The caller from capitol one stated that, there is nothing in the notes about the late fees.So we were shafted. We paid them and they still call. I looked on line and the late fees do not show up,but they call and say we owe them late fees.My heart goes out to these people for the hell they have been through.Stay away from Americredit and Capitol one.