What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas
My fiance took out a vehicle loan through a local credit union in July of 2009. We recently went into the bank to pay off the remainder of the loan, and the remaining balance was almost $2,000 higher than it should have been. After more than an hour of discussion with one of the bankers, we learned that he had missed a loan payment in September of 2009. They charged him a $30 late fee. They then took every proceeding payment (he has never missed another payment), counted it as the prior month's payment, and then charged another $30 late fee - in summary, a $2,000 penalty for one late payment.
We were never notified of the late fee - the bank informed us that they don't send out statements because they are too large, but they don't have online statements for loans because they are a small, local company. He has been contacted by the bank since the missed payment regarding address changes and proof of insurance. There were some other questionable things at play; for example, the banker first told us that she could not find out where the charge came from, she would have to send it off to "research" at the cost of $20/hr. The banker also informed us that it would cost us $10/month to get printed copies of our statements, which is (by my understanding) the only way to access these statements.
I understand how they have played this, but I don't want to be one of the many that this credit union seems to have taken advantage of. Is there anything that I could argue legally to try to get this charge knocked down to a reasonable amount? He would have made the payment if he had had any idea that something was wrong.
My fiance took out a vehicle loan through a local credit union in July of 2009. We recently went into the bank to pay off the remainder of the loan, and the remaining balance was almost $2,000 higher than it should have been. After more than an hour of discussion with one of the bankers, we learned that he had missed a loan payment in September of 2009. They charged him a $30 late fee. They then took every proceeding payment (he has never missed another payment), counted it as the prior month's payment, and then charged another $30 late fee - in summary, a $2,000 penalty for one late payment.
We were never notified of the late fee - the bank informed us that they don't send out statements because they are too large, but they don't have online statements for loans because they are a small, local company. He has been contacted by the bank since the missed payment regarding address changes and proof of insurance. There were some other questionable things at play; for example, the banker first told us that she could not find out where the charge came from, she would have to send it off to "research" at the cost of $20/hr. The banker also informed us that it would cost us $10/month to get printed copies of our statements, which is (by my understanding) the only way to access these statements.
I understand how they have played this, but I don't want to be one of the many that this credit union seems to have taken advantage of. Is there anything that I could argue legally to try to get this charge knocked down to a reasonable amount? He would have made the payment if he had had any idea that something was wrong.