Complaint Review: AmeriCredit Financial Services - Chandler Arizona

If you have a simple interest loan, there is no grace period. That is merely the date you have to pay by to keep from incurring an ADDITIONAL late fee. You still always have to pay the late interest. If you make your payment plus the additional late fee (because it is past the 10 days), you still owe additional late interest. If you don't include the additional late interest in your payment, your account will always be paid short. Do this. Look at your last month's statement and see how much money went to pricipal and how much went to interest. If the statement does not show the amounts, just subtract the current balance from last month's current balance and you can see how much went to principal. Then divide the total interest paid in the month by 30 days and you can see approximately how much daily interest you are being charged. Then, when you make your payment even 1 day late, include an extra day of interest. If you are 5 days late, include 5 days of extra interest (you also may want to add a few days for posting time). That is how you don't fall behind on a simple interest loan (or just make sure they get the payment ontime and that is also how you don't fall behind). With the "bad credit" credit agencies, there is no longer a grace period, and the loans are usually simple interest loans. Many people still think all loans are like they used to be; interest computed monthly rather than daily, the grace period allowed for mailing, etc. With most loans, it no longer works that way, even though they do have that extra charge if you are more than 10 or 15 days late. That is what throws people off.

""Grant you I was late, but I took care of my late payments, which was a month and a half of payments. I notice the plural ""payments."" This will probably catch up with you when you later when you think the loan is paid off and it's not. Let's say you have a 5 year loan, 60 payments and you make 4 of them 15 days late. You may have paid the "late fee" but I can almost guarantee that after you make payment number 60, the loan isn't paid off. The reason for this is because the payment schedule is made with the assumption that all payments will be made on time. When you're late, even by one day, many lenders will tack on additional debt against the principal - this is INTEREST accrued from the payment(s) being late. After making the 60 payments, with 4 being late, it's quite possible to owe more, even a few hundred dollars, to close out the loan. This is especially possible if at no time do you make an overage payment during the loan to "wipe out" this additional accrued interest. The ""late fee"" (usually about $10) does NOT do this. The "late fee" is an administrative fee to cover the cost of additional administrative costs and is NOT applied to the principal of the loan. ""In the notice of default, they indicated if I was ever late again my car could be picked up without further notice."" They are probably tired of dealing with you because of multiple late payments. I suggest you re-read your loan contract very carefully to see if late payments and repossession are specifically addressed. ""In my contract it specifies charges after your payment is ten days late, in some way their contract is conflicting, if you can never be late, why have a late charge, and I assume the 10 days is a grace period."" It can be confusing to the uninitiated. Most late fees are administrative fees and do not apply to the principal. Additional accrued interest for paying late is added to the principal and increases the total amount you must pay to satisfy the loan. Normally, you do NOT have any grace period regarding accrued interest because of late payments UNLESS your loan contract specifically states this. Again, read your contract very, very carefully. ""I am trying to understand how they are able to continue to do business, when I know there has to be some rights violations."" And those rights are??? This is a contract and your rights under this loan are specific and are stated in your loan contract. If a "right" is not specified in the contract, it doesn't exist. What I'm trying to say is you have no INTEREST FREE GRACE PERIOD unless your loan contract specifically states that such an interest free grace period exists. As to repossession of the vehicle - hopefully there might be some clause that defines the circumstances when repossession will be sought. Normally, anytime your are late a creditor my repossess the vehicle unless the loan contract states otherwise - very few do it when you're late once or twice, however, if you establish a "pattern" of being late, many creditors will repossess the vehicle. If you're having trouble fully comprehending your loan contract (don't feel ashamed - they can be very confusing when you're not used to them) I suggest you check in your area for a non-profit consumer credit counseling service and make arrangements to visit them and have them review your loan contract and explain it to you in terms you can more easily understand. You can search on the internet for "consumer credit counselor" or look in your local phone book - my only warning about this to go to ONLY a non-profit counseling agency. Stay away from the "repair your credit" or "consolidate debt" outfits. If you still can't find one then call your local government social services agency and ask them for a financial counseling service (non-profit) that might help you. There are protections enacted by Federal and State Law. They may be violating something in how often they are calling you - but the federal FDCPA isn't it. You might check with your State equivalent of a Dept. of Consumer Affairs or other state agency that regulates creditors. The EXCEPTION is if something in your contract violates Federal or State law. I hope this helps. Good luck.

Well they never charged us a late fee at the time but after we where suppossed to be done with the contract there they are almost 3000 dollars on late fees. Hidden charges. You will see at the end

Ever think that maybe you shouldn't be late on your payment then? I know it happens sometimes but in all honesty. You being late is a breach on your end of the contract and they have every right to say they will take the car. Would they really do it for being late again? I highly doubt it. It's a scare tactic they use in hopes it's make people not be late. They did loan you a large sum of money and want it back, No different then if you had loaned that much to a person under the expectation of them paying you back. So you have to understand where they as a business are coming from. The best bet is to NOT BE LATE.. and those rare crappy time when it is unavoidable. Call them a head of time and inform them. Don't just go late and wait for them to harass you before you pay. More then not you will know WEll in advance to give them notice if you can't make or are late on a payment. This will help secure that you don't get repoed if they are not just threatening and do plan on taking it. I have this feeling this was not the first time this has happened on your account though and I can't help but feel they are probably just getting fed up wth the double payments all the time and would like you to uphold your end of the contract just as they have. I have had Americredit for my car for 2 years now. I've was late by 2 weeks one time with them. The only time I've been late. I knew in advance and I called to inform them. They said it was ok, ask a rough idea of when the payment would be in and They didn't even charge me a late payment fee at all simply becasue I called and was curtious enough to to inform them ahead of time. So next time, Give that a shot..... I feel Americredit so far is one of the better company's out there. UNLIKE WELLS FARGO

Americredit is not going to repossess your vehicle after merely being ten days past due. Let your account go 60+ days and then maybe you'd better start worrying. You can expect collection calls all day long, as long as they aren't leaving more than one voice mail message. The FDCPA does not apply to first party creditors. Every major creditor I know of has begun using the automated dialers for collection calls. They come every hour or two all day, even Sunday now.