What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Utah
I have an auto loan through a local credit union. The original loan issued in 2011 and was a 6 year used car auto loan. In 2013, we were having some financial issues and called and asked the credit union for a "skip payment". We have never missed a payment, and only asked for one month to be skipped. After our "skip" month, my wife realized that our payment had dropped. I am not a loan expert and figured that something had happened with the interest, or it was just how the amortization of the loan worked.
2 years goes by and we have been making the lower payment the entire time. I decide that I want to sell my vehicle so I ask my wife to call the credit union for a payoff date and payoff amount. The representative tells my wife that the payoff date is Feb 2017 (this should have been the correct date) and the payoff was X amount. In my head, the payoff amount and the payoff date were not seeming to be correct as if you took our payment times X amount of months, it didn't equal the payoff amount. The representative wasn't really sure why, said it was something about principal amount vs interest remaining or something like that. She assured us that the payoff date was still Feb 2017. Since the date wasn't too far away, i decided to just hold off on selling my vehicle until the loan was paid.
fast forward 6 months (last week). I decide again that I want to sell my vehicle. I again ask my wife to call the credit union for the payoff amount and date. Again, we were quoted feb 2017 as the payoff date. I asked for specific answers this time of how our loan amount and payoff date could be so far apart from each other. The representative put me on hold to do some research. After about 30 minutes, a loan officer comes on the line and says that the payoff date is actually Feb of 2019 and the representative was telling me an "estimated pay off date". He stated that when we asked for a "skip payment" the loan officer refinanced our loan with the original terms which extended our payments through Feb 2019. I asked how this happened and the loan officer put me on hold.
15 minutes goes by and the loan supervisor comes on the line. She states that she doesn't know how or why this happened. I asked her if they can refinance a loan without a signature and she says no. She looks in the history of our account and there is no information or request for a refinance. She says that she is going to do some research and call me back.
Now I am stuck with a loan balance that is about the same as the value of the vehicle and my planned down payment for my new vehicle is gone. She called me back the next day and basically said there is nothing that they can do for me because we were paying the lower amount for the last 3 years. I told her that her team needs to calculate the difference in interest that I paid and at least pay me that amount back. She said that she will try but needs approval from the credit union and finance managers. I asked her if it was legal for them to refinance my loan without permission and she said "I would need to ask our legal team".
I am waiting to hear back from them this week, but in the meantime i wanted to get some advice on if I should get a lawyer. I am not big on suing people and the difference in value is only about 3k. This is more about policy and procedure to me at this point than any monies lost.
Any advice?
I have an auto loan through a local credit union. The original loan issued in 2011 and was a 6 year used car auto loan. In 2013, we were having some financial issues and called and asked the credit union for a "skip payment". We have never missed a payment, and only asked for one month to be skipped. After our "skip" month, my wife realized that our payment had dropped. I am not a loan expert and figured that something had happened with the interest, or it was just how the amortization of the loan worked.
2 years goes by and we have been making the lower payment the entire time. I decide that I want to sell my vehicle so I ask my wife to call the credit union for a payoff date and payoff amount. The representative tells my wife that the payoff date is Feb 2017 (this should have been the correct date) and the payoff was X amount. In my head, the payoff amount and the payoff date were not seeming to be correct as if you took our payment times X amount of months, it didn't equal the payoff amount. The representative wasn't really sure why, said it was something about principal amount vs interest remaining or something like that. She assured us that the payoff date was still Feb 2017. Since the date wasn't too far away, i decided to just hold off on selling my vehicle until the loan was paid.
fast forward 6 months (last week). I decide again that I want to sell my vehicle. I again ask my wife to call the credit union for the payoff amount and date. Again, we were quoted feb 2017 as the payoff date. I asked for specific answers this time of how our loan amount and payoff date could be so far apart from each other. The representative put me on hold to do some research. After about 30 minutes, a loan officer comes on the line and says that the payoff date is actually Feb of 2019 and the representative was telling me an "estimated pay off date". He stated that when we asked for a "skip payment" the loan officer refinanced our loan with the original terms which extended our payments through Feb 2019. I asked how this happened and the loan officer put me on hold.
15 minutes goes by and the loan supervisor comes on the line. She states that she doesn't know how or why this happened. I asked her if they can refinance a loan without a signature and she says no. She looks in the history of our account and there is no information or request for a refinance. She says that she is going to do some research and call me back.
Now I am stuck with a loan balance that is about the same as the value of the vehicle and my planned down payment for my new vehicle is gone. She called me back the next day and basically said there is nothing that they can do for me because we were paying the lower amount for the last 3 years. I told her that her team needs to calculate the difference in interest that I paid and at least pay me that amount back. She said that she will try but needs approval from the credit union and finance managers. I asked her if it was legal for them to refinance my loan without permission and she said "I would need to ask our legal team".
I am waiting to hear back from them this week, but in the meantime i wanted to get some advice on if I should get a lawyer. I am not big on suing people and the difference in value is only about 3k. This is more about policy and procedure to me at this point than any monies lost.
Any advice?
