Beware of Harley-Davidson Credit

I have never used these guys before I purchased my last scoot, my 07 NT. I bought that bike on a whim and decided to finance the thing with these guys since the deal was so easy, just sign and ride away. Well big mistake.

I bought the bike in July and decided to pay the thing off at the first of this month and sent them a check and got back a nice form letter with the contract stamped "paid" and the original title with the lien "released". So far so good.

Well today I see they auto debited the monthly payment from my checking account weeks AFTER the account was paid off and at a time when there was not debt due to them. I call the 800 number to let them know of their error and the lady says oh sorry we will cancel that auto debit payment arrangment now so that does not happen again. I say can you please refund the payment you just took and she says yes but that will take 15 days. I say well you just did the auto debit today by your mistake and now is when things get interesting. The lady tells me it was my responsibility to contact them to notify them to cancel the auto debit. What a crock of ****. This falls in the catagory of no good deed goes unpunished. I am so mad at these sob's right now. I have had tons of loans over the years and anything I buy I set it up on the auto debit payment arrangement so my only obligation is to make sure there is money in the account and I don't have to worry about stamps and mail and stuff like that. I routinely pay off things early and never in all my years have I ever had a company continue to auto debit my account for payments after they got paid off and after there is no debt due.

These guys just lost a customer, I will NEVER finance **** with these *******s again.

So everyone out there be warned about this, don't let these *******s do this to you.

Sounds like a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

If they can debit today, looks like they could credit today also. Credit card companies do it.

[Stone Cold]

Same thing happened to me. I changed the accounts I wanted to pay from. I assumed (my fault) that if you set it up to pay from another account, it would automatically close the other one. Wrong. Made two payments last month.

Still waiting for my refund.

[Gazoo]

So I bought a car once and the finance manager told me to make sure to fill out the form to cancel the auto payment with my finance company. He said that it is quite common for this to cause problems as they use a second source to collect the payment and the delay from the payoff to when the collecting arm gets notified often exceeds the days before your next payment.

So it is not just Harley Credit. I use my banks free bill pay for payments. This allows me to cancel it quickly whenever I want to.

Hope this helps.

[dwarthog]

Originally Posted by Gazoo

So I bought a car once and the finance manager told me to make sure to fill out the form to cancel the auto payment with my finance company. He said that it is quite common for this to cause problems as they use a second source to collect the payment and the delay from the payoff to when the collecting arm gets notified often exceeds the days before your next payment.

So it is not just Harley Credit. I use my banks free bill pay for payments. This allows me to cancel it quickly whenever I want to.

Hope this helps.

Free bill pay is a must have. It greatly simplifies banking, bill payments etc.

I won't have another account anywhere that doesn't include this as part of the package.

[Kfengler]

Originally Posted by Gazoo

So I bought a car once and the finance manager told me to make sure to fill out the form to cancel the auto payment with my finance company. He said that it is quite common for this to cause problems as they use a second source to collect the payment and the delay from the payoff to when the collecting arm gets notified often exceeds the days before your next payment.

So it is not just Harley Credit. I use my banks free bill pay for payments. This allows me to cancel it quickly whenever I want to.

Hope this helps.

I stayed away from the HD, used my CU from a small loan and was able to go online and just pay it off a few months later, no hassle. The HD Finance dude was the worst part of the buying experience.

I use my Credit Unions Bill Pay option too, and it works really pretty well, but I still prefer not to set up the "Auto Pay" Option. I'm pretty lucky and have no big loans, one small one through my CU where I did set up and auto Transfer of funds from my savings to the loan.
You may want to check with your bank, but I think they also use a second party that does the Bill Pay.
I also have access to the one Credit Card I use so I can always check my statement on line and make a payment if I need to do it immediately, since in some instances the Bill Pay through a Bank and/or Credit Union may take a few days.

[route66paul]

Automatic withdraels can get you into trouble. Sometimes these will take your money early, or will place "a hold" on that money, and forget to take it off. in a sense, you end up with 2x the payment out of your account. This can really mess you up if you need to use that account. Most banks will treat "on hold" money as money already spent. That way they can charge you extra fees when you go to spend the money that was placed "on hold" after your payment was paid.

Our family business was getting tagged all of the time over this, since all of our monthly business expenses were set up that way. Many times the hold won't drop off and they will wait until you dip down that low to take the hold off. Washington Mutual claimed that it was an automatic thing, but when we looked, there was no set time for the hold to drop. We fought them and got hundreds of dollars in charges wiped off. They still try us now and then, but we check our bank accounts 2x a day, just to make sure this doesn't happen.

Other banks that have branches in our area want to hold the credit card machine reciepts an extra week. Since our business is not the same week to week, we need that money ASAP. There are times when we put more than $80,000 a week through and others that there might only be $500 a week.

Every bank that we have or had has thier own special way to collect extra funds from you in fines or wants to hold extra money to show how much money they have on deposit at any one time. This is good for them and bad for us. Check kiting is using the down time to your favor between the time the check is taken to the time they withdraw from your account. This is referred to as "float". These banks have done us one better by using this "float" money for thier advantage and then charging you a fine for thier indescressions.

Don't try to tell me to just have enough money in to cover, there was about $6-7000 a month. No one wants to keep thier capital static that long, it is needed to buy product.

[thrasher]

Originally Posted by dwarthog

Free bill pay is a must have. It greatly simplifies banking, bill payments etc.

I won't have another account anywhere that doesn't include this as part of the package.

Absolutely, Don. It also keeps YOU in control of your recurring payments instead of them. I don't have anything autodebiting out of my checking; mistakes can happen too easily.

[TJ Willy]

Sorry to hear that happened to you. I have had good experiences with them. Lastly, moving my payment date on the second bike to match what the first one was. Earlier taking it upon themselves to lower my interest rate after the "loan officer" set it to 7.99 stating that was as low as they go. Well as most of you probably know, it is NOT as low as they can go.

Anyway, I called them today to see if I could tack on my December payment to next year. Two in January basically. (Hospital fees for the baby) They said - one better. We will defer the payment to the end of the loan - no fees - no problems. I thought that was cool.

I have however had MBNA debit me twice in one month for NO good reason. It took forever to get that payment back. I was so glad when I owed them nothing!









Now, my main point... can you pay off my bike to?

Get bill, write check... very simple...

[swmnkdinthervr]

Originally Posted by 8-Ball

Get bill, write check... very simple...

Paid cash...contact over...go play...simpler yet...

Originally Posted by swmnkdinthervr

Paid cash...contact over...go play...simpler yet...

That is the best plan for sure. Wish I always had enough cash to fulfill that old desire for immediate gratification. Some folks are more patient than others. I can remember my Dad telling me at a young age I need to learn some patience and he was right.

[SafetyMan]

Originally Posted by swmnkdinthervr

Paid cash...contact over...go play...simpler yet...

That's how purchased my '07 Heritage... the only way to go.

[Berserker]

I have never had a problem with auto bill play, not saying it can't happen. Haven't done it with HD either

Funny one dealer told me around 7%, 6 something talk to the manager,best he could do. Another dealer 4.99 with out asking. Which is what HD was advertising. 1st dealer gave some bs, that I could get 4.99 if I wanted to fiannce it all. BS.

As far as paying cash, thats great, maybe someday. But I look at what pay in interest, and decide if its worth it. My last bike paid around 1200 in interest. Was worth it to me.

We are living in good times, as far as rates go. My 1st new bike was aroundf 9%, only $7k. If I had 9 % on 20k maybe feel differant.

[BigSwede]

I have only ever used Harley credit to get my orders processed and moving. I need a loan approval for this. I let the order slide a couple months and find my own financing. The interest rate is always better and I don't have problems because it is my usual bank that I get the loan with. Sorry to hear about the problems.