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Fifth Third Bank Complaint - Misrepresentation - Misinformation given by employees in the loans/claims departments
Misinformation given by employees in the loans/claims departments - Complaint
Recently had a situation where damage to my vehicle resulted in reimbursement from my insurance company made out, unfortunately, to the lien holder and me. Employees at Fifth Third Bank instructed me to endorse the check before sending it to them because that was policy (they could not endorse it without my endorsement first) and that their claims department would then sign and return the check to me. I was told this was the only way they would even handle the check; there was no other option (besides driving 100 miles to the nearest branch of the bank). In good faith, I did as instructed. I received a phone call today letting me know the check had been applied to my loan. Obviously, it is not the worst thing to have a chunck taken off the balance of my loan. However, in my average American paycheck-to-paycheck household, I was looking forward to being able to pay off a bill or two and give my son a nice birthday present. Now his birthday is next week, and I have to that long to replan it. It is a big inconvenience that could have been avoided with a little bit of honesty on behalf of Fifth Third Bank employees. You could say perhaps the person giving me the information made a mistake, except that, according to her, she had the "handbook" so to speak, reading to me the instructions on how to handle this particular situation. Therefore, whether it be she that I spoke with or the authors of their policy and procedure guidelines, someone is intentionally misleading customers of Fifth Third Bank. My loan payment was not behind, by the way, so that had nothing to do with it.
Comments:
Posted by clutzycook on 2011-06-21:
I think I would have asked the insurance company to only make the check out to you. Usually that's what they do because that insurance payout could typically go toward the repair of the car. The only time I've heard of a check written out to the lein holder is when the car is a total loss, which is what happened to me 4 years ago. What happened then was that the insurance company wrote a check out to my lien holder for the remaing amount owed on the car, and then sent a check to me for the balance.
Posted by saj80 on 2011-06-22:
clutzy, you are wrong. Insurance proceeds, regardless of damage amount, are made payable to both the lienholder and owner. If repairs are made, most banks will hold the check until these repairs are verified, and then release the check to the repair facility. However, if a lienholder is omitted on a check, the damage reduces the value of the collateral, and many people use the proceeds for reasons other than repair of the vehicle. If an insurance company omits the lienholder on the proceeds check, and the repairs are not made, then the insurance company can be held liable in the event of loss of value to the lending institution.
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