Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, active duty (deployed) soldiers are protected under SCRA. And, IMHO, they should be. They are serving our country and the last thing I want them or their family members to worry about is making that student loan, mortgage or car payment. It’ll be waiting for them when they come back. But that is beside the point. The law is the law and the banks should follow them. And if they don’t, they need to make their customer whole.
With that said --
When banks scrub delinquent/defaulted loans against the Department of Defense’s database to determine if the borrower is active military and there is a hit, those loans SHOULD be automatically placed on a SCRA deferment and all delinquency should be cleared back to active duty start date. Credit bureau reporting should be corrected too. The Federal Reserve Bank completes random and periodic audits to ensure banks are doing this. However, if the borrower was not reported as active duty by their military branch or was reported with the incorrect DOB and/or SSN then the bank will get a null value and the loan will default and car will be repossessed. This doesn’t happen often but it DOES happen.
Banks don’t know what they don’t know. Soldiers are not taken from their beds in the middle of darkness, thrown on a plane and shipped overseas and bam – they are deployed. No, they get orders in advance. I’m sorry but they have to absorb some of the responsibility for not getting their ducks in a row before they leave. All it would take was a call to their bank and emailing a scanned copy of their orders. Done. Their car will be there when they get home and no one else will be living in their foreclosed home.
The dude in this article KNEW he was protected under SCRA but he just assumed Wells Fargo knew he was deployed. Again, how would WF know if the DoD database was not current or correct and bank was not notified by the soldier or their POA?
Wells Fargo have made mistakes here, no doubt. But their lack of a response may just be their tactful way of not pointing fingers at the DoD and the soldiers either.
And WF compensating these men and women doesn't necessarily mean they screwed up but simply that it is the RIGHT THING TO DO. Especially in light of the other scandal.
Edited to add: The word "illegally" is being used very loosely and haphazardly based on the info in this article. Yes, it would have been illegal if WF knew the soldier was deployed and repo'd his car for $hits and giggles but it's not considered illegal if Wells Fargo did their due diligence by trying to determine if dude was deployed; and came up with no results.
Last edited by ShanIAmVA; 10-04-2016 at 01:44 PM..
As I said elsewhere if your behind a few months on car payments expect repro whether your a service man like me or not has zero bearing on anything! Wells doesn't have a clue what your service relationship is nor do they give a rat's rear!!! Pay your cottonpickin car payment ! As for Stump he is going to Disney World with a backpack of no less than $120 million and what that means is the Justice Department and all of us are fools watching another mismanaged CEO driving into the sunset in a custom Range Rover. Ha, Ha. .... HA! ( Last laugh!). Business has one obligation to servicemen and women in the now famous words of Wyclef Jean......" were da money at?"
its in a lease contract, its on your loan paperwork, (occupation).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nov3
During a family members' deployment, they had to assign a person "in state" to cover their financial obligations. Its what deters these incidences' from happening. There are governing regulations in Defense to assist the active duty service personnel.
Usually before seizure, a letter or an attempt to collect is rendered to the owner of the loan.
Power of attorney, "special" for something specific like a car payment, or "general" for everything. Some do it for only if they die. No matter who you are, its difficult to give someone control over you finances when everyone knows you will be gone for 6 months to a year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffdoorgunner
If you will note..........I started this thread before that one was started.
yeah along with two other posts. Then the next 5 pages (after), most posters disregard it.
It's irrelevant. Current or not, it's still illegal to seize their cars without a court order. When a soldier is deployed, the last thing that should be on their mind is whether or not their bills are paid on time.
I am curious about this statement. Are you saying that soldiers shouldn't be expected to pay their debts on time just because they are soldiers?
I am curious about this statement. Are you saying that soldiers shouldn't be expected to pay their debts on time just because they are soldiers?
That's just silly. Of course service members are required to pay their debt. The point is, if they are deployed and something happens, the bank will not go after the vehicle. For instance, say they have their bank set to auto-pay using their debit card. Well, the debit card expired or is compromised somehow. The service member might not even know about it due to their location and not receiving mail. Should the lender of the car note automatically repo their car? I received a new debit card in the mail and their was one auto-payment I forgot to update. When the company tried to process a payment, it failed and they contacted me right away. Over the phone we got it squared away and the issue resolved. For the service member, contacting them isn't that easy. The law gives the service member the opportunity to get everything taken care of when they return from their deployment.
Soldiers are not taken from their beds in the middle of darkness, thrown on a plane and shipped overseas and bam – they are deployed. No, they get orders in advance. I’m sorry but they have to absorb some of the responsibility for not getting their ducks in a row before they leave. All it would take was a call to their bank and emailing a scanned copy of their orders. Done. Their car will be there when they get home and no one else will be living in their foreclosed home.
The dude in this article KNEW he was protected under SCRA but he just assumed Wells Fargo knew he was deployed. Again, how would WF know if the DoD database was not current or correct and bank was not notified by the soldier or their POA?
There's more to this story than what's in the story...a careful read of it says that he was 'preparing' to deploy...he was not gone yet. There has to be some other reason that he was far enough behind on his payments that his car went into repo status- I've seen both sides of that coin and I *know* that you don't get repo'd for being just a day or two late on your payments.
While the repo may have been *technically* 'illegal' at the time it occurred, the default began some time prior, the dude was still in the States and most likely was aware of the default and should have been able to cure it with little difficulty...assuming that he hasn't gotten himself bunged up in some major financial difficulty like losing all his dough in a barracks craps game or an ex-wife taking him to the cleaner's.
Sounds to me like he's trying to use a technicality to weasel out of a problem of his own making.
As if anyone in the military needed another reason not to do business with a shady big bank like Wells Fargo rather than the absolutely excellent USAA or the various military affiliated credit unions.
I am curious about this statement. Are you saying that soldiers shouldn't be expected to pay their debts on time just because they are soldiers?
That's silly, no one is suggesting this. You can't just not pay your bills, return from active duty and not pay the past due. It just means they can't reposes the car while the military member is deployed. If he doesn't pay the bill when he comes home, then they can reposes it.
I fully agree with the service member having to be responsible and notify the necessary parties that he will be deployed.
I had a full POA when my husband deployed, but he still notified his bank etc.. that he was deployed. Just like we told our landlord that we would be breaking the lease if there was a deployment or change of duty station.
Also, as a side note, the original version of this law was written back in 1940. Obviously well before online banking and debit cards. The current SCRA revised the SSCRA in 2003. I personally have used the previous version of the SCRA (for me it was called the Soldiers & sailors Civil Relief Act). When I went to USMC boot camp back in the beginning of 97, there was no online banking and while in bootcamp, you have zero access to do anything concerning your bills. This was 3 months where I would not be able to make a car payment or any other payment. Not because I didn't have the money, but because I couldn't sit down and write a check to pay the bill. I received a single late notice from the lender when I got out of boot camp. I contacted them and explained where I was for the past 3 months and they said no problem. They then moved the missed 3 months of payments to the end of the loan along with removing any late fees.
He had his attorney on record attempting to contact Wells Fargo and they did not respond.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
