Sorry for being such a downer lately...
However, I thought I should share this so you can learn from our mistake. Before we were married, the fiance got a new truck through the cash-for-clunkers program, which ended up being a great deal for the piece of junk he was driving around. Since he didn't have the cash to pay for it in full he ended up taking out a loan through SunTrust. He had borrowed money from them before, so there was no "red flag" in turning to them for a car loan.
Well, the past two weeks we've run into many "red flags" to put it lightly. Because we are taking the car overseas evidently they think we're going to try to get out of paying back the rest of our loan or something? It's been ridiculous, we are on our 4th trip to the loan office, 8th written document because they've been nitpicking the heck out of the prior 7 that they "required" from him. Not to mention that between the 2nd & 3rd visit there was a 5 business day mandatory wait for him to get approved? Yet during the 5 days something changed requiring more documentation and they didn't even have the decency to call him and tell him about the new requirement!
The first and main issue I understood- his orders were for two months later, so he needed to give him the new orders for the closer departure date. Done & done. Then they kept throwing stuff in our face, ie: we needed to set up a direct deposit to ensure they got their money (done), we needed a notarized letter signed from his CO saying we were actually leaving the state on military orders (are you kidding me!? Done.), we needed the insurance policy number for the truck showing it would be transferred to our new location (uh, hello it's USAA- they go where we go, done.), and on and on until we hit the 8th document! Quite the ordeal.
Like I said, learn from our mistake. Since you never really know where your next PCS will take you be sure to choose the military safe, friendly, and understanding of a reputable place such as USAA or Navy Federal for your loans.
And SunTrust, I hope you know that once we arrive at our new location- we will be refinancing our truck through USAA. You just lost some reliable customers.
We have our truck through them as well. Thankfully it "should" be payed of by the time we move again, and if it isn't it will be within months of moving. I cannot believe they are dragging you though all of that. Ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteWe learned that lesson ourselves when we PCSd two years ago. The bank I had my car loan was one I'd used for years and the absolutely refused to let us take the car overseas. We ended up having to use our bank in Louisiana to give us a loan for our car. USAA refused to give us a loan unless my mom co-signed. My one and only beef with USAA.
ReplyDeleteSorry you are having to go through this!
Is this the same with PCSing between states too?
ReplyDeleteUmmm, you shouldn't be having any problems with getting your car to Hawaii. Though you do have to cross and OCEAN, you are NOT going overseas. We were told by transportation that we'd need all these documents for the military to ship our car. Turned out that we needed none of them.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why your bank would be giving you problems... Hawaii is another state, not another country. The one problem that we did run into was our insurance, which we did have to change to USAA.
You might want to call the place where you're dropping your car off... They should be able to tell you all the documents you'll need in order to ship it.
Gaaah. That is SOOOO frustrating! Piles of paperwork later, they just lost a customer. Really, people need to become just a little more compassionate with their business practices to accommodate for diverse lifestyles that demand a lot from families.
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