[Darth Martel]

We had USbank for the lease on the Equinox my wife drove. After we turned the vehicle in, we got the $395 bill plus a $250 tire replacement charge. I was pissed about both but mostly about the $395 charge. When I called to complain, the lady I spoke to said the charge typically comes at the front of the lease and not the back end. I quickly remembered in previous leases being charged in similar fashion. So, we just paid it and went on with life vowing never to lease again. Oh, and the reason I didn't complain about the $250 tire charge is that our dog had eaten through both sets of back seat seat belts. Getting those replaced would have been at least $250. I figured I'd take the chance of turning it in that way and maybe them not realizing it. Oh well... they got me with the tire instead.

[l008com]

Here's an update:
They send me an official bill. The bill was $250 for the "engine light", $100 for the windshield chip, sales tax on that $350, plus a full years worth of excise tax. But no lease end fee.

So I wrote them a letter back disputing the $250 fee (you could see from the inspection report photos that it was just an oil change light).
I told them I'd pay the $100 but I needed a copy of the repair receipt so I could give it to my insurance company. Of course, there is no receipt because there was no repair, they just charged me the fee and sold the car as is.
I also disputed the sales tax, as MA sales tax is only on goods, not service/labor. So the sales would be on the materials only portion of the windshield repair, not the whole charge, and certainly not a random meaningless $250 fee because my car needs an oil change soon.
I also disputed the excise tax bill because I only had the car for 2 months out of the year, so it should have been $26.88 and not $161.25. That has to be changed by the town, but turns out I can't do it on USBank's behalf, so the bank will have to contact the town to get that corrected. And I know for a fact they're not going to go by the date i turned in the car, they're going to go by the date USBank sold the car. Which is going to leave one or two months of extra "limbo" months that they are going to tell me I'm responsible for, and I'm going to tell them they are responsible for.

We'll see how they respond to my letter.

[l008com]

It's been a surprisingly long time, and I have yet to hear back from them in response to my letter. *shrug*

[l008com]

So here's an unexpected turn of events. I finally heard back regarding the dispute. The removed the oil change light ($250) and the windshield chip ($100) right away. The only charge left is excise tax, which is legit and I will pay, but not until it gets abated down to 2 months worth of tax, instead of the full 12 months.

They still have this policy where, if a tax abatement is more than $50, they take a $25 admin fee. But I'm not paying the tax bill until after it gets abated so I don't think that $25 will end up being a problem either.

[Richard0nee]

When I leased through GM financial, I paid the acquisition fee $595. There shouldn't be another charge once I return the vehicle at the end of the lease correct?

[l008com]

They can always try to stick you with excess wear and tear, but if it's direct through GM, you'll probably be fine. I tend to lease sports cars in the winter (to get better deals), and so my excise tax bill tends to come right at the lease is ending, so its always an extra thing that pops up to deal with

[Richard0nee]

Originally Posted by l008com

They can always try to stick you with excess wear and tear, but if it's direct through GM, you'll probably be fine. I tend to lease sports cars in the winter (to get better deals), and so my excise tax bill tends to come right at the lease is ending, so its always an extra thing that pops up to deal with

Okay thanks. Yeah my lease is with GM financial.. It's not my daily driver so miles will be low.

I never returned a lease before so I'm not aware of the extra charges. I might just end up keeping it though, I love the car too much!!

[l008com]

Update: The full excise tax bill was $161.25. That's for all of this year, but of course I turned the car in in February, so that bill needed to be abated. It took USBank forever to get that done, and the town JUST send them the abatement. They ended up charging me for march too. So the refund was for $120.94. However they take a $25 "administrative fee" out of that for processing the transaction, so they only actually refunded $95.94 to my account.

So, the final bill I owe them is for 3 months of excise tax plus $25, $65.31 (even though I only had the car for two months, not three. But that extra month is a grey area where it's really the town that's doing the screwing-over, not the bank.

But had they not taken $25 out of the refund, then my final payment to them would only be $40.31.

$65.31 or $40.31

Now I'm trying to decide which one of those amounts I'm going to pay.

[l008com]

I finally got an actual invoice for the $65 amount. The invoice had a long memo about how my account is "severely overdue". Of course it's only 6 months late because thats how long it has taken them to make all of the appropriate corrections to the final amount. So I'm just going to pay the $65 rather than fight over $25. Get all this camaro paper work filed away finally and move on with my life.