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Do I have a case? Santander Consumer USA

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billvan

Junior Member
California

On Sept 1st 2010, I refied a Citi Auto loan with my Credit union, I have a a copy of the cancelled check proving I paid the loan in full. I used ACH payment for cite and never had a late payment. Because my auto payment was the 3rd of every month, Citi auto advised me to put a stop payment on my Sept 3rd Payment, and I did so. On Sept 2nd 2010, my 12k loan was paid in full. On Sept 3rd citi attempted to debit my reg ACH payment and this payment was stopped. On Sept 6 Santander USA bought out my loan. On Sept 11th, Santander posted a stop payment, but instead of applying it to my Sept 3rd payment after being paid in full, Santander applied the stop payment to my Aug 3rd Payment. I gave santander Bank statement proof that my August 3rd payment cleared and was not stop nor was returned to my account. US Bank also sent Santander a letter confirming my August 3rd payment cleared my Bank account and was not returned. 104 days later and about 40 phone calls later, Santander still claims I owe the August 3rd Payment. They would harassment me and call me 10 times a day, to the point I sent them a ceast and desist letter, that stopped the phone calls but has not stopped the problem. My credit score has dropped 80 points this month because Santander reported me being 30 and 60 days late. I am attempting to refi my house right now and the credit hit will hurt this. I can easily prove I paid this loan in full and its obvious Santander made a mistake and citibank as well. This will be an easy case for a CA lawyer. Please contact me pm. If you Google Santander Consumer USA there is a def pattern that may be Class Actionable?
 


cosine

Senior Member
You are unclear about which account Santander bought. Did they buy the one from the credit union (CUs usually keep accounts in-house, so this should be rare) or the paid-up account from Citi? Contact Citi to see what records they have. If the CSR tries to tell you that Citi no longer has the records, then they are lying.

As long as you have the evidence you say, your case should be solid. There should be a "Find an Attorney" link at the lower left of your post. Why not start there to find an attorney that will take your case. You definitely have significant damages if you can't get as good a rate on your mortgage re-fi.

BTW, if they offer to settle with a non-disclosure term, be sure you spell out in the settlement exactly how much over and above the damages and attorney fees the non-disclosure offer is. That part is income and you will owe tax on it.
 
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billvan

Junior Member
You are unclear about which account Santander bought. Did they buy the one from the credit union (CUs usually keep accounts in-house, so this should be rare) or the paid-up account from Citi? Contact Citi to see what records they have. If the CSR tries to tell you that Citi no longer has the records, then they are lying.

As long as you have the evidence you say, your case should be solid. There should be a "Find an Attorney" link at the lower left of your post. Why not start there to find an attorney that will take your case. You definitely have significant damages if you can't get as good a rate on your mortgage re-fi.

BTW, if they offer to settle with a non-disclosure term, be sure you spell out in the settlement exactly how much over and above the damages and attorney fees the non-disclosure offer is. That part is income and you will owe tax on it.
Thanks for the response! Santander bought the citiauto account. I paid off the citi account on 9/1/10 and was advised by citi to stop payment my ACH on 9/3/10 because they could not guarantee they could stop the payment on their own, and I didn't not want to wait for then to refund me a check in the mail. Unknown to me, Santander bought my account on 9/6/10 and all Santander saw was the stop payment, but they incorrectly applied the stop payment to a Aug 3rd payment that cleared my account and I can prove. Santander keeps telling me there are waiting for citiauto verify my claims and this has taken over 100 days. Showing I can prove the payment cleared and gave this info to Santander I don't see how they waiting for citi is my problem? Shouldn't they correct my account and deal with citi without damaging me more?
 

cosine

Senior Member
Send Santander a cease and desist letter, with the explanation of all the details of why you dispute the claimed debt, along with (again as the case may be) photo copies of proof of payments, etc.

Contact credit reporting agencies (CRAs) with any Santander derogotories and dispute them as "Paid in full to OC".

Normally an account would not be sold with a zero balance. But if it was sold, either that process failed, or the account didn't have a zero balance for some reason. Contact Citi and PRESS HARD to info from them, like "when do your records show this account paid in full, and when do your records show it was sold, and what was the balance at sale".

I'd have already filed suit against Citi if I was in such a case. Banks make mistakes. They make them a lot. I give them one chance to fix it by communicating by phone. If not fixed and verified within an appropriate time frame (depends on what it is), they get one more change based on a letter (certified, return receipt). If they fail to fix on the 2nd notification, I treat it as "3 strikes" and file the suit.

Mistakes happen. Not fixing them is more than a mistake (their only defense then is they have proof that it is not a mistake). And this is mostly Citi's mistake, and maybe Santander is not even at fault if the info they got from Citi is wrong. The cease and desist should get them to send it back to Citi. You might even suggest that to them.
 

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