FordPass new terms

[PrimeRisk]

Oh man, that brings back ugly memories from car deals of the past before I learned to say no and get up and walk out.

Much better nowadays most places. Still some slime out there though. Thankfully I haven't encountered it in many years.

The first time I bought a house, I was a first year law student - I read every damn page of every document, lol. Took a while longer than the agents had hoped, but in the end, all was correct.

The 29.99 percent was what used to be called "usry." Anything above that was unconscionable.
Now many states allow a contract to override their max "usury" rate.

Your story is very timely, unfortunately...

Just today, the new administration decided to shut down all work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...so it will be back to "laissez faire" economics and "caveat emptor" - cut throat capitalism in coming to a country near you.

30% APR used to be the law where the rate became usuary in Colorado back when I had this experience in the early 90s. That's child's play compared to the law today, it's 45%!

https://www.shouselaw.com/co/defense/laws/usury/

Shutting down the CFPB is terrible. Businesses are going to start getting away with murder because the know that now the only way to get them to play legit is to take them to court, but most companies have mandatory mediation, so that's a complete shit-show. Even if you opt-out of mediation, most people don't have the stomach or the pocket book to go up against the big-business lawyers. People are going to get f*cked over by the millions, mark my words

I'm have been recipient of the help from the CFPB when I sold a house in 2023. The thieves at Lakeview Mortgage serviced LoanCare Systems were down due to their 3rd hack in as many years and while they received the wire on the closing date, they didn't actually apply the payment to my account for 4 weeks. That equated to over $1000 in interest. At closing they knew there was an issue with the LoanCare systems, so the title company withheld an extra month of interest on LoanCare's directive. I was livid and protested as this was not in the 3-day settlement statement (they literally dropped this gem on me at the closing). I contacted the mortgage company multiple times during that month to get a status and all they would say is that yes, they got the payoff, but no, they couldn't settle the account.

I finally got an e-mail saying that their systems were back up and sure enough, my loan was closed and I had a credit balance of about $66. Well that was way wrong as the settlement date was wrong and apparently were intending on keeping $1000+ in unearned interest. I called and they said they understood and would open a ticket, but it would take 7-10 business days. After waiting another 2 weeks I got nothing except the $66 and change in the mail as a refund and a copy of my lien release.

I called again and they said my account was closed, the ticket I had opened, was closed and my refund had been issued. I asked if there was a second check and they said no, all I was owed was what I had received as my loan had only closed 2 weeks ago. I was less than impressed and went through the dates and the CSR even confirmed that they had the money for nearly a month before it was applied. I demanded to speak to someone that understood that they couldn't just keep that money. The supervisor I got was patronizing and while she admitted it was a mistake, she appeared to care less.

She opened a new ticket and gave me the number. I asked when I would expect it to be resolved. She snapped back that they would get to it when they got to it. She continued that if I didn't like it I could file a complaint. I said I didn't like it, so she started giving me an address where I could send a letter to the company. I stopped her and said oh no, if this is the attitude and no commitment on how long it will take, I'll be taking the complaint to the CFPB and our State AG's Financial Fraud division. She said good luck and since I was filing complaints, she'd just cancel the ticket. I told her it was at her own risk, but whatever she wanted to do.

So I did. I filed complaints with the CFPB and the Colorado AG. I had a response from LoanCare in 48 hours. Unfortunately for the supervisor, she had already given me the ticket number and sure, she cancelled it, but that didn't erase it from their system and they had apparently listened to the recording of that call. The person that contacted me was very apologetic about the situation, the supervisor's poor customer service, and had already calculated what was due back to me with precision. She asked if I'd like a check overnighted or if I'd like a wire with fees waived. I said the check would be fine.

Two weeks later an investigator from the AG's office contacted me and I told them the issue was now resolved, but the investigator said the AG was not done with them. Even though the mortgage company had resolved the issue due to the push from the CFPB, the AG had a hard-on for mortgage companies pulling this type of crap and holding on to people's money for long periods of time with no reason. I was happy to oblige the investigator with all of my evidence.

With the CFPB gone, we can only hope that our state AG's office will have the manpower to help the citizens. If not, there will be no place to turn.

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[PrimeRisk]

And these same people are in business in so many dealers every day. In many cases now protected by laws that the dealer associations have bought from their senators and representatives.

That is true. These days I pay cash for my cars unless there is a special financing deal like Ford offering a $1000 discount to finance with them at 0% for 60 months. Not sure how that makes any sense, but I'll take their free financing and put the $60k in T-Bill earning 4.5% and drop $1k/month out to pay Ford. (Yes, I could make more in other investments, but considering what's happening to the market, I'm ok with the simple arbitrage win)