American General Finance Fees - upset about Pre Payment Penalty and late payment fees

# 8 for May 29, 2002

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on May 28, 2002:

From: Email User

RE: American General Finance Fees - upset about Pre Payment Penalty and late payment fees We were contacted by American General to take out a loan and to condolidate our bills. We meet with the Company Rep. and were given misleading information. We asked two major questions, how do you handle late payments, the response was "as long as you pay buy the 15th day of the grace period their is no penaty".

This is not the case even though the documents state this they asses a 20% fee during the grace (15 days) period. The other question we asked was about early payoff, the response "only if you pay it off during the first 12 months is their a penalty".

Once again this is not the case, the legal ease of how this was written is why we asked for clarification, only to given the wron information.

We could have gone to another leander, (we have excellent credit) and should have. I have contacted them only to be told sorry, this is the way it is. Bottom line is that we payed back $14,000.00 more than we borrowed ! So beware and get any and everything in writting in plain English.