[normtrum]

So my home phone rings tonight, and the caller ID says "toll free". My wife tells me the same number has been calling 5-6 times/day for the last 2 weeks (I've been in Alaska), and says "I won't answer it because I hate talking to telemarketers". I'm on the "National No Call List", so I answer the phone ready to go off (we RARELY get calls on our home phone). I say "hello", and the first thing out of this lady's mouth is "I need you to verify your home address". That was it, nothing else. I laugh and say "uh....ok...there's no way in hell I'm giving you any information....first of all, who are you? who do you represent? and what do you want?" I thought those were good questions.

She then replies "I'm calling from BMW Financial Services, and I need to know the last 4 digits of you SS #". I say "you've got to be freaking kidding me? do you honestly think I'm going to give you that info? if you are from BMWFS, then you already know this stuff". She replies "I cant' give you any account info unless you verify who you are".

Ok, so at this point I don't know what the hell is going on. I say "I don't want any account information....in fact I refinanced with my credit union 3 weeks ago...I don't even use you guys anymore....if in fact that's who you work for." She then says "ok, you're refusing to give me any information?", and I say "hell ya...that's right". She then hangs up on me.

So after this rude, BS conversation, I pull up my old account on the owners circle (or whatever it's called now), and they claim that I still owe for last month (July 25th), AND for this month (Aug 25th). They still show my entire balance of roughly $40k, and nowhere do they refer to my payoff.

so I find a letter that my wife picked up last week from...guess who....BMWFS. It was dated 8/7/08, and listed my payoff as being received on 8/5.

Are they this stupid? Has anyone else made a payoff and had this type of thing happen to them? I find it hard to believe that they would be calling me about 2 payments, when my balance has been "0" for almost 3 weeks. Obviously the payoff is in their system, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten the letter.

BTW...I'm paying $450 less per month with my credit union. I will never go through BMWFS again.

A bit of a long rant I know....I'm juuuuuust a bit pissed off.

[epbrown]

Could happen with any large company - different areas do different things. If they're like most businesses, they outsource the company that processes payments, who appear to have not been updated.

[Sh0cker]

FWIW, BMWFS handled my last payoff fine, even returned my title faster than they promised.