Complaint Review: Westlake Financial - los angeles Nationwide

First off, pay no Mind to this other person, he is obviously an employee, who else would waste their time on a rip off report site DEFENDING another company. They are on here responding to ALL reports about this company as well as Wilshire. It's a scare tactic and they are trying to discourage you from taking any further action. It's their job to make you feel stupid, dishonest, that to make it seem like you don't have any recourse. YOU DO HAVE RECOURSE! Along with my personal experience with this company I have done my own research on them as well, and you are in the right my friend. Please dont let anyone discourage you from taking legal action against them, that's what they are hoping will happen when they come on here and tell you things like this. This isnt some Q&A site or advice blog. Trust me, people on here are dealing with their own rip offs and don't have time to pick apart other people's stories. They should identify themselves when responding as an employee or ex employee, but if they did that would mean they can't treat you the way they can when they say they are a consumer as well. Second you are totally right about this company:

I have a $3,000 loan from them, always made on time payments and one morning I woke up and my car was gone. After contacting the police department I found out it was repo'd. After talking to Angel who I guess is my account manager, he said that I hadn't made a payment this month! Knowing this wasn't true cause I'm the one who wrote the checks myself AFTER trying to pay online, which is how i was told i could pay and actually prefer to pay. I checked the last three months of payment stubs where I had the check number and date mailed written on it. Angel insisted I never paid anything, so I checked my bank account and saw that the check was never deposited. I insisted that I had mailed it but at this point I knew I was screwed. I paid the payment right then, which had to be in cash through western union only. I also had to pay a $400 repo fee and some other minor fees that totaled like $120 or so. It then took them 5 days to send the release to the tow yard. Well, about a week or so later guess what I get in my mailbox? Three envelopes that have "return to sender not at this address" written on them, and whats inside? MY PAYMENTS! I checked the address on their payment coupon with the address I had written on the envelope and they matched, so I hadn't sent it to the wrong place. I figured they either knew I sent the payment and just wanted the extra repo fees or they lost it and instead of owning up to it when it was found, just sent it back to me. I called them to let them know that they had returned the payment back to me and that I had paid it, and that I expected to be reimbursed for the fees. They basically laughed at me and called me a liar. The next day I received another bill from them stating that I owe $680 in "other unpaid fees". When I called and asked about it they said it was their fee because I got my car repo'd. I told them that I already paid over $500 just in repossesion fees and they told me that that was the fee JUST TO GET MY CAR OUT, and that this fee was for the inconvenience of them having to repo the car from me. I tried explaining what had happened, but it was useless. Since then I have kept up with my payments, but I refuse to pay the extra $680 fees they added, and are trying to repo my car AGAIN for that. With all of that, I have already paid over $4000 to them and they say my payoff amount is just over $5000! 

I am in California and I URGE anyone else in California to file a small claims suit against them, report them to your local DA, and the attorney general. I haven't had my court date yet, but after much research I have found A LOT of their business practices are illegal! Not to mention their collection practices being that they have contacted almost all of my family members several times after each one has asked them not to, and have come to my house ringing the doorbell and kicking the door several times late at night, once they came at 4:30am.

They lie about being able to pay online, they lie about fees, they lie about not receiving payments, their collection practices are illegal, and their interest rates are usury. I would like to suggest that everyone, and their are plenty of us, who have been ripped off by this company colaborate together. They can only get away with this as long as we let them.

feel free to contact me vis email at: [email protected]

Best bet is just to pay them, yes things happen.  I actually had 2 westlake loans over the past 8 years or so, paid both of them off and now my credit is much better so I do not have to deal with them.   They do have a very bad rep for rude and threatening behaviour.   I was a few days late a few times and they did harrass, and even when I would make an arragement  I would still get calls and no one seemed to know about the arragements that had been made.   They do sometimes treat their customers like scum, which some of them probably are, but they do not need to treat everyone like they deserve that title.

Best advice I can give you is pay them off ASAP, and never borrow again.   The borrower is slave to the lender.   Save money up next time and pay cash for your next car.   People that struggle to pay their bills already and have money issues to strart with get held down by companines like this.   Best to not even get involved with them, its about like dealing with a loan shark.

The best thing you can do right now, today, if you haven't already done it is to pay what small amount you owe. Then take out your contract and read it. The lender can repossess for any past due amount, no matter how small. Past due is defined in your contract because the due dates are defined and even one day late allows the lender to protect their collateral.

Does life sometimes get in the way? Yes. But how an adult handles it is by having enough savings so that the payment is made on time anyway. There are no 'life got in the way' freebies written into your contract. I haven't read your specific financing agreement, and I don't work for any lender, but I've read a bunch of contracts and every single one of them have a due date and a default provision.

Right now, you are asking the lender to exercise their remedies for your default. Not a good thing, especially if just purchased the vehicle recently.  It's not too late to start making all of your payments on time. Your whole world will get better once you do what you have to do in order to keep the promise to pay on time in your written agreement.

 Here are a few facts for you.  Westlake is a SUBPRIME lender, meaning that you have not proven yourself credit worthy to go more "main stream".  Now, as a SUBPRIME borrower, they are going to be a lot more agressive making sure you meet your legal obligations..ie..MAKING your FULL and ON-TIME PAYMENTS. 

Yes, this means that if you have not made your full payment they are going to call.  And contrary to what ever "entitlement" attitude you seem to have it is 100% legal that if you do not make your payments..even if it is for $140 and even if it isn't a month late they have every LEGAL right to reposess your car.  Oh and you want to know why...because when they agreed to loan you several thousand dollars YOU agreed to these terms.

So the answer to get them to stop is real simple.  Have you figured it out yet?  Well just in case it is to make your payments.  Yea I know just way to simple right?

Oh and let me tell you one other thing.  If you think they are bad, just wait.  If they end up reposessing your car the next lender you get is going to be even more controlling.  They will also very likley put a GPS tracking device on your car that if you are 3 Days late, you don't have to worry about them calling, they will just disable your car from starting until you make your payment. 

No I do not work for this company or any finance company.  I am just telling you the facts of your situation.  It is up to you whether or not you want to fix your own issues or continue to try and think that everyone else is doing something wrong. 

 Your poor credit is what has made all this happen. You need to pay them what you owe them and then guess what.....the calls stop. Had you done more to secure your credit you wouldnt be dealing with this. But at the end of the day, its YOUR bill paying habits that is causing this. The ONLY way out of this is to PAY OFF WHAT YOU OWE. There is no magic cure for oweing money. The ONLY cure is to pay what you owe.

Congratz on your new car, but really, did you need a new car or want a new car. Had there been a NEED you could have bought some POS craptastic to get you from point A to point B. But if you WANTED a new car, then all of this is just your ego and vanity.

First of all, you are with a SUBPRIME lender rather than a lower interest rate bank.  YOU brought that upon yourself by NOT paying YOUR bills on time before this deal.  Now here we are currently...YOU are STILL not paying your bills on time.  Why is that???  YOU are late aqnd as such, YOU and ONLY YOU turned "on" the collections efforts!  The solution?  Pay your bills on time and STOP being a serial deadbeat.  Oh yes, don't waste your time claiming "you must work for them", because I don't!