Last Fall I got into a spot of financial trouble. I was laid off from my job and I tried to do the responsible thing. I knew I would have a problem with my Lease payments for my truck so I called the nice people at Ford Credit and explained my unfortunate circumstances and asked if there was anything we could do to get around it. They said "Sure we'll be glad to help you out, all we need to do is..." Which essentially they took my "application" for a deferment of payments for 2 months and said all I needed to do was pay the interest payments for the months I was requesting and then they would add two additional months on to the end of my lease, extending the lease end from August 2002 until October 2002 with the understanding that additional penalties may apply for miles over my limit. (which is just fine as I'm waaaay over my miles now as it is) I said "Cool!" and waited while they sent me the appropriate forms. I waited.... and waited and waited some more. Calling them from time to time especially when they started to call me when my payment was late. They finally concluded that their waiver forms must be lost in the mail and they would go ahead and send out the forms again. They told me to fill out the forms and send in payment for the interest for two months as I had requested to waive Oct and Nov payment. Got the forms, sent my check, and everybody was nothing but happy. Fast forward to yesterday. The dirty buggers dinged my on my CR with a 60 day and 30 day late! They assured me that as long as I paid the interest as agreed there would be no penalty and no derog credit. Two questions from the above rant: 1. Is this something that FC does on a regular basis? 2. How best can I go about getting this removed, do I a) dispute dispute dispute with the "Big Three" or B) Go to Ford Credit, writing them a letter asking that they remove the derog as they originally promised there would be no penalty? Thanks in advance for your advice.
Yeah they do a lot of crappy stuff. Take it up with Ford. First, write them nicely and ask them to take the lates off, since your forms were lost in the mail. Then dispute real quick with CRA. breeze
Ford credit is notorious for this (well in my case). I co-signed for a car for my now ex and long story short......there is something to the tune of 19 30-day lates and 5 60-day lates. I know that this is NOT possible because I reserched the financial records. I sent in copies of bank statements, western union quick pay receipts, etc. and they would NOT do anything. I think according to my records that there really should be 1 maybe 2 30 day lates and 1 60 day late. The 60 day late would be from when they contacted me to tell me that my ex wasn't paying. That's when I stepped in, paid the remaining balance and took the car from him. The loan was for 48 months! I have disputed this with Ford and the 3 CRAs to no avail. They did change the listing because previously it was reporting 22 30-days late and I think? 1 60-day late. I can't even remember anymore and don't really want to remember. This will be off my report in Feb 02. The bottom line is that I have BEGGED Ford to help me. No one cared. Even after I sent them proof. I'm sure I could of taken them to court blah blah blah but I simply just don't want to be botherd anymore. It's not worth it to me now. But remember, If you dispute it, they will verify it until they DIE! :-(
I am about to go after Ford myself. I had two accounts with them that went through my Chapter 7. We originally re-affirmed on both accounts and then within the proper time limit, rescinded one of the reaffs. We have all our paper work to prove this mess. Ford credit has no idea what the other hand is doing. When we rescinded, that meant we would voluntarily turn in the car. It took numerous phone calls and took over several months for them to send someone to pick up the car (rescinded in Jan. didn't get picked up till April). Any deficiency is discharged as part of the BK. Now our credit reports are showing an appox. $5000 bal. left on the account. They are also showing it rated R8. If I am not mistaken, accounts included in a Chap. 7 BK are not rated and show $0 balances. The derog comes in that the account was "Included/Discharged through Chapt. 7 BK." Now the other account we reaffirmed we kept current and traded the vehicle in on another in April. That account shows as "Included in Chapt. 7 BK" with a zero balance with a last update of 10/00. We did not negotiate a lower payment or balance and paid according to the installment contract. When we traded the car was paid off in full. We received the original contract stamped "Paid in Full" and a separate letter from Ford stating the same. Shouldn't this account be moved to a positive status? Funny thing that Ford has decided to report the repo account on Experian recently and not the good account that was paid off. Ford Credit has also sent me a survey asking me to rate my experience with them. These items have been disputed, but come back verified, so it looks like I will have to deal with them directly. I am holding off on the survey until I see how they resolve the above issues. Sorry so long, but I had to rant as well. I know DaveLV is in the middle of a battle with Ford as well. They are horrible as far as customer service goes, they never return calls, etc.
