Complaint Review: UACC - United Auto Credit Corporation - Los Angeles California

Well written Tom. It amazes me that no matter how many comments I read on here, they are all the same. Abusive tactics which to this point have somehow evaded the law. UACC should be bankrupt via settlements to repeated lawsuits, but perhaps they are banking on the fact that lots of their target market lacks any real education and/or their financial situation isn't such that they can afford a decent attorney to pursue a company in court. Another addition to your notes is the fact that UACC can have two identical applicants (or at least very similar credit and employment history etc), so why does one get a loan and another is turned down? Has the taste of discriminitory lending doesn't it? I imagine you could even mark the debtors' addresses on a map and see that they primarily sit in lower income and inner-city areas, something that became illegal long ago, even if this demographic may not be specifically targeted by UACC. And yes I did refer to them as debtors as I too was barked at when I referred to loan holders as customers, and guess the title just sorta stuck.

Dear Mary My name is Tom. I started in debt collections on April 15th 1988. I remember the date clearly because we always remember significant dates in our lives. This was one of the worst days of my life it turned out. I was 21 years old. I was told by my bosses i was kind of a 'financial police officer' . This impressed me quite a bit, as i had always considered myself a straight up guy and respected the law. However, not 2 months into my new career, I called a senior lady who had bounced a $10 check to photo studio. I asked her to please remit the $10 dollars, and she told me to 'fu%$ off'.. Have you ever had a grandmother tell you to 'fu$% off'? A small part of my soul died that day. It was just the beginning. Needless to say, as the weeks passed, months, then years passed, i became more jaded as 40 0f my waking hours per week were spent dealing with people : -who had gotten a service or product and didnt pay for it. -either had no money or didnt want to give it you to anyway -didnt want you to call them, otherwize they would have paid the d**n bill long ago. Its tough to maintain a good humour in life with a positive outlook when you are dealing with this full time . It wears on you. Sooner or later we become as jaded as the debtors we are calling. Fast forward 5 years.. By now i am sick and tired of try to bully, con , threaten and or manipulate people into paying their debt. However, I have to or i wont make my quota and i will get fired. I am constantly pressured into collecting any way i can or else. But after 5 years, i cannot convince myself anymore that i have the power to make anyone pay. They are going to either pay it or not. So i develop a front end collection system to grab the easy debt and move the rest on to a second tier of harder collector, then a third and then out to small claims. My system is adopted by my employers and I received several accolades and eventually 3 promotions. Why? Because if i didnt re-invent the rules, i was going to go under. Fast forward another 5 years. By now i have collected everything u can even imagine. soft, hard, repos, small claims action, garnishment. In fact, i now have created several standards in the industry itself , using a 30 60 90 model, as well as settlement structures and credit rescoring. At this point in my career, i am looking at managing large teams of collectors and even consider buying portfolio of debt. Fast forward 4 more years.. I move from canada to Ohio. Needing a job to get settled , i am recruited from this fellow Dennis from UNITED AUTO CREDIT . He is impressed with my front end system proven to get results. He promises me all kinds of quick advancement blah blah blah.. I took the job because i needed the easy paycheck as i got settled , and i had never done this 'field chase' angle to collections. I felt it would also be a challenge. Well , there were SEVERAL 'CHALLENGES' . United auto credit has some pretty drastic policies that i had never considered nor felt would be effective . I had never known a 'creditor' like this existed outside of loan sharking and mafia. Im not joking. Literally. United auto credit specifically 'targets' customers with recent discharged bankos who would normally be a grade 'a' lease client, whom now needed to refurbish their credit. They HATE people with no credit, and in fact give more loans to people with BAD credit than no credit. They also charge accordingly. 24% apr . Of course anyone DESPERATE enough to accept that type of financing will ALSO be DESPERATE enough to buy the d**n car for WHATEVER the dealer could sucker them for. So now they have a vehicle financed for $12,000 bucks , that is really worth 8k 'retail' and of course about $4500 bucks at dealer action. Its ridiculous. But that is where the follies actually BEGIN. United auto credit INSISTED on telling me how to collect like i was some kind of 'rookie' collector. In hindsight, they SHOULD only hire rookie collectors, because no real debt collector would be able to take their intelligence insulting methods. They insisted i treated our clients like they were literal babies, and 'scolded' them accordingly. When i indicated that in my VAST collection experience taught me that treating people with respect and dignity had FAR superior results, they scoffed at it. They sat me down and indicated that these people were 'deadbeats' and we needed to 'ride their a*s' or they would no doubt jerk us around and not pay . My question to them was pretty basic: If you need to babysit and scold these people into making their auto payments.. ..WHY ARE YOU LENDING THEM MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE? This actually floored my employers, to which there was an akward silence -then the manager went into a long diatribe how they are 'giving them a fresh start' and a chance to build new credit, a car where nobody else would etc. Yes, at 24% interest i pointed out. To get the 30 day bucket down, i had indicated that a prior notice program be set up for repeat delinquinces , and paydates be kept for bi weekly paycheck clients. This so that we could also help them pay a week EARLY -not a week late. My system was Squashed because , well , thats not how 'they did things' Yknow, prevention is always a better idea than retaliating in hindsight. United auto credit used a system of 'strong arming' and harassment of references to keep their customers in line. My idea was to help the client make sure he wasnt late with helpful ideas, and working 'together' encouraging customers. Their idea was to let them HANG THEMSELVES by being one day late, then call them up to DEMAND PAYMENT DAMMIT . WE DONT ACCEPT LATE PAYMENTS. PAY NOW. PAY NOW PAY NOW. So Mary, this idea that your collectors 'did their job' cause your customer is complaining is some TWISTED A** rationale that firms up some kind of self centered belief that the 'end justifies the means' . Furthermore, your statement is something DIRECTLY out of the training manual. I heard your very words over and over again. i had to call guys who were 2 lousy days late and tell them to PAY NOW PAY NOW PAY NOW , when the poor b*****d had never been late before in the 2 years he had been there. PAY NOW PAY NOW PAY NOW. My god, the words were INSULTING my intelligence, my sense of morality, and decency as they were leaving my lips. go to western union and PAY GD NOW! or what? This is what my customers would ask me with quite often a bemused tone to their voice. or what? ..Well sir, we dont accept late payments and you are (technically) in violation of your contract BLAH BLAH BLAH until finally , soon after my employment began, i told them the truth. or what? well bud, if you dont pay today by western union for no practical reason, i will GET IN SH** BY MY BOSS, and thats about it. you see My boss has been brainwashed by his boss and corporate to think if i give you 2 days slack now, you will want 4 next month. Your whole purpose in life is to eventually RIP OFF united auto credit right? So can you please just humour me and waste 1/2 a day and a bunch of money u dont have right now sending us a western union so that united auto credit doesnt go BANKRUPT without your payment? .further to this, if you dont go thru all this crap, then i will call all of your references 'looking for you' which of course will tell them u are 'misbehaving' and you aint no d**n good anyways. If that doesnt work, i will then go out and physically CONFRONT YOU , hoping you have your payment on you when i surprise you unaware. All this will certainly improve relations with you. If you didnt hate our guts before , you must CERTAINLY DO NOW. They have been doing business this way for so many yeas, they literally convinced themselves there is NO possible better way. Many customers gave me a pretty simple solution that seemed obvious to me: Why doesnt UNITED AUTO CREDIT have automatic withdrawl so that it will cut down on all of these problems? Every single lender without fail in the united states has an online bill pay option if not an automatic deduction setup. Well, they 'approve' so many irresposnible people for loans, they are afraid too many of the checks will bounce out of the eft withdrawl. again the question. why are we lending these people money? More importantly, WHO IN HELL would EVER want to make their living preying off these comprimised people to begin with. The bottom line is that UNITED AUTO CREDIT actually DEPENDS on you to screw up your credit so that they can sell finance you at 24% . Then they immediatly turn around and treat you like you should be holy gratefull that they even consider you a human being at all. There is one exception. Make every single payment ontime IN THE MAIL or DROP BOX for 36 to 60 CONSECUTIVE MONTHS without being 1 lousy day late even once. I CHALLENGE ANYONE WITH A 800 fico score to pull that off EVERY MONTH without the mail being late once, or lost, or being unable to make it up to the drop box. Never one day late ever. Whatever.. Needless to say, I left United Auto credit, bewilederd, depressed, and in shock. I cannot believe that they could not, nor would not try to find a better way to help their clients stay on track. Using a postive model. All of my 16 years of collection experience could have very well instituted a proven system to help keep their delinqunces down. I have a literal EXPERT opinion on collections. Lets face it. We are dealing with people who have had trouble paying debt, who are desperate enought to take 24% financing on an overpriced asset that is continually depreciating. Its virtually an UNSECURED debt. Why do they even bother lien the vehicle? I have often wondered that. Considering the vast risk and dubious nature of the product, they put literally NO EFFORT into coming up with a comprehensive system to HELP their clients pay their d**n loan every month. ever thought of instituting the 'failsafe' program that allows them to pay their payment 10 days early when they sign their contract. In other words, if they wanted the payment date on the 1st, agree to the terms. Then write up the contract that it is due on the 11th, but their contract with that branch calls for it on the 1st. Just a special disclaimer form agreeing to the 1st of the month payment. Most of them wont even get it. Nothing illegal about it. Mutual consent. So they pay on the first, the vast majority of them will think that IS THEIR PAYMENT DATE, and of course they will be hard pressed to EVER be past due even one day. The form also allows consent to give them 'reminder calls' etc up to 10 days in advance of their payment as a courtesy. So when you call on the second telling them they agreed to pay on the first, they are actually still 9 days early, but its a legal authorized friendly reminder. This was just the first easy suggestion. No matter what i said, they had exuses why they couldnt do it, and stuck with their vile , destesting system. They are in my opinion, ruthless jerks who think their clients are SUB HUMANS, and in fact almost encourage them to be late and default due to their strict, ridiculously slim payment options and mafia style collection system. As for me? United Auto Credit ended up serving me the biggest break of my life. I could no longer bear to collect debt. It finally dawned on me what my quality of life was. Zero. Debt collections is really 'cold call sales' where the 'sale' is MORALITY of paying a bill because its the 'right thing to do' . I called people for 16 years who didnt like to pay bills, who didnt have any money and didnt want to talk to me. 16 years and well over 100,000 people. It turns out, if you can get people to pay debt , you can SELL ANYTHING. So i became a loan officer who now sold mortgages. I made $55,000 dollars in my first 5 months working for a broker. Then i moved to florida , opened my own netbranch and make $100,000 in my first year of business. Now i have my own corporation and make $250,000 a year. Thankyou United auto credit for being such detestable pieces of true SH**. Because of you i quit collections and found a much more rewarding career. More importantly, i finally realized that the 'deadbeats' we harassed are 10 times better human beings that you or I will ever be.