A-L Financial Corporation

They were approved to finance a vehicle for me and I lost my job. I never did get a chance to make a payment on the vehicle so I called them up and told them I need to return the vehicle and asked them if they could pick it up. I never hid the vehicle or anything. And I know there is a fee after the car is sold at auctions so I wanted to work out arrangements with them to pay on the car after it would be sold at an auction.

They never responded to my request. The only thing they responded with was to tell me I could get the car at a total sales price paid all at once. It was a large price so I didn't get the car. Then after that, I got a summons from superior court. I could not make the appointments and I called the courts and told them I could not make it because the person who was supposed to take me, backed out. In the end, the courts told me to call A L Financial. I told them what happened and I wanted to work out a payment plan and they told me, "We will still go to court and stick you with a bench warrant".

I am honestly not trying to not pay them anything. I want to workout a payment plan they want to stick me with a lot of charges that I cannot afford and stick me with warrants. They never not one time tried to contact me even though I have tried to contact them. They want to get me in court and take all my money that I don't have, and clean me out totally. This is their reputation. They want to clean you out. Even when you try to do right by them. I never hid the vehicle and I never said I wasn't going to pay anything, but they do not care, they just want to mess up my life and do in my already bad credit even more. I am trying to clean up my credit. All I request is that they please give me a payment plan. I truly have a hardship and they want to kill me over. They don't care, they are truly stressing me out.

They have a page of full complaints even from those who have paid their car notes. They also have people call in who work with the company. I want to clean up my credit and like other companies they do not want to work out anytime of payment plans since the car is gone and sold to someone else or to a company. They just want to hurt me and send me to jail. I asked the sheriff who came if the bill is paid if I go to jail, he said no, that I just get charged even more money that I cannot afford. He didn't take me, and his name was Sheriff **. He is only giving me 4 or 5 days to work something out with A-L Financial from today April 27, 2011 then off to jail if nothing and that is A-L Financial desires.

They won't listen or talk to me. I was told this is illegal because they never tried to work anything out with me in the beginning and I just don't know what else to do. I don't want to go to jail for anything like this. I am not a criminal. I have a hardship and I do not have a car or a lot of money. They never have given a chance to prepare a payment. I was also told they want to force me to give up all of my information in court and before I know I will have no money even though I currently do not have any.

Since that is the case, they would probably just take me to jail. I am not sure what would have happened, I just know they are really mean, not all of the employees just most of them, and they should be reported. They know nothing will happen to them so far so they just ignore the ratings by the BBB which is an F rating. What can i do? Thanks so much.

They are a finance company that caters to those with bad credit--sort of a last chance finance company that only deals with small dealerships. I fell one month behind on a payment when I only owed a little under $1,000.00 left on a car that I had already paid them over $6,000.00 including finance charges on. They repossessed my car.

I have been tardy with my payment before and they had not taken this action. Why wait until the car is nearly paid off? Because they would be in a position to keep all the monies that I paid and have the car also. If that is not enough to gauge the intentions of this company, when my car was repossessed, I went in the next morning and paid them every cent of the payments that I owed--all the late fees, and a repossession fee of $345.00.

I then received a bill that quoted me a new balance of $639.73 and that my next payment was due on 06/08/10. After that, this means that my balance should be somewhere around $352.79. I then received a statement thereafter which said my balance was $988.00. I contacted the company and had to speak to a series of representatives to include the regional vice president, Joseph **. They all stated that my balance was higher because I paid the repossession fee to them before they paid the repossession company. So what they are saying is this: they added the amount back onto my account after it was paid because they paid the repossession company!

If I paid the fee, it should then be credited to my balance. Why does it matter when they paid it to the repossession company? It doesn't, and the vice president justified what they are doing by saying that it was legal. Legal to have me pay for something twice? I think not. If anyone else has had issues with this company, I encourage you to contact the BBB and the Attorney General to file complaints. I will even provide a detailed steps on how to do this. This company preys on those with bad credit and takes advantage of sensitive financial situations. If everyone who complains on these boards, files a report with the BBB and Attorney General, they would have the BBB rating that they really deserve!

Last year my car was discharged in a Chap 7 bankruptcy. Upon renewing my registration and insurance I was told I had to get a lien release from AL Fin to remove them as a lien holder. I verified this with my Bk attorney and we also checked my credit report which shows it was charged off via Chap 7 bk.

We waited over a year to see what AL would do and they have done nothing. On Jul 29th I faxed over A letter and the Red 166 (lien release form) per the DMV and never heard a response. I called the DMV and they checked to see if lien had been released and it had not.

On Aug 11, Clory Campos 323-900-3277, called and spoke to someone at AL Fin and was told that I own them $31,000. She immediately called me back and I informed her that was not true that my loan was only $19,000 when I filed bankruptcy. I then told her I would be filing a complaint.

I have my discharge papers and credit report. This company gets numerous complaints and should be investigated. Unable to purchase another vehicle because of lien.

A-L Financial has been calling my friends and discussing my late payment history with them. They also call me daily to harass me about my loan whenever I am late on a payment. They will not change the loan due date or offer automatic withdrawal from my bank account, nor do they accept Visa payments.

I was unable to make my April car payment due to the death of my sister in Arlington, VA. I informed A-L Financial of this and they said I still had to make a payment immediately. I stated that I could not as I had not received a paycheck and could make both my April & May payments on June 2. They were unwilling to agree and stated that they would not accept my offer.

I tried to pull the April payment together and even had my landlord give me back 150.00 towards the car payment which she did graciously. Zeenan V. told me that they would accept 307 of the April payment but I could only get 250.00 which they would not accept. Late Sunday night on May 29th, my car was taken anyway, even after Mr. V. said that if I made two payments this would not happen. I called the office on Monday morning and found out that they were charging me a total of 1,369.00 which included the two months car payments, 450 repo fee and 139.00 in late charges which was a total surprise, since each invoice I received never had any balance reflecting that late charges were accruing. They did not tell me that I would have to pay an additional 125 to the A company to get my car back. I did manage to pay everything and got my car back. When I went to pick up the car, the A. Company located in Santa Clara refused to give me a receipt for the $125.00 cash I paid to get my car off the lot and said it was the responsibility of A-L Financial who said it was not their responsibility.

On June 20, I received a dunning letter from A-L financial(my car payment was not due until the 22) and was told, those letters are generated automatically and if my car payment falls on a Sunday which it did that the only way I would not get a letter like that is if I make my car payment earlier or by that Friday. After repeated calls regarding a receipt for the cash I paid, I have not gotten any answers. Also, I never received a June invoice, I have asked at least six times and was told that it probably got lost in the mail. In spite of this I have received two dunning letters from A-L Financial. I paid my June car note and have informed the office of same.

After this experience I have decided that people with less than perfect credit such as me are victims of these kinds of small, unscrupulous, unprofessional companies. I would like to see the government put some controls on these "bad credit finance companies" so they dont prey on people like me. It's almost as if they want us to fail so they can take our cars back, re-sell them and still hold us responsible for the balance owing on the car. It is extremely unfair and at this point I am trying to get re-financed through my bank. What a nightmare!

I had to forego paying 25% of my rent, all my car insurance and my PG& E bill because of this. In addition, I missed a full day of work on a day that I should have been there, jeopardizing my job. I had to go to San Jose first to pay, then to Santa Clara to pick up my car. It was an all day affair.