Trouble with Yamaha Finance

[Jim Cosler]

Wondering if anyone else has run into issues with Yamaha Finance?

I purchased my boat in 2013 and some time later the loan was tranferred to Synchrony Bank. This past January it was transferred back to Yamaha Finance. I have had constant issues since this occurred, incorrect billing, incorrect balance due, and problems with customer service. Now they have charged me a $39.99 late fee which is unwarranted and they will not rescind.

Background:
I pay my bill via online bill pay through my bank. I have done it this way for years, without a problem. I always put the due date early and last month put the payment due on the 23rd...my bill was due on the 25th. Yamaha finance says they didn't get the payment until the 30th, thus my payment was late. They said I should set the due date a WEEK early to make sure it is ON TIME.

Secondly, I pay extra on my loan each month. So much extra that last year with Synchrony I was almost 6 months ahead in payments. This meant my bill every month said $0.00 due. When my loan was switched back to Yamaha in January they dorked it all up and immediately I began to owe a full payment. They explained my extra payments were applied to principal (duh) and when they assumed control they were able to reset my payment schedule. So instead of being 6 months ahead I was back to square one, not with a new monthly payment amount, but the original payment amount. My point being, even if my payment somehow came late last month, as they claim, I would have been way ahead if they hadn't rejiggered my payment amount. Thus I would never have owed the late fee.

Needless to say, I am super pissed.

Has anyone else been jerked over like this by Yamaha?

 

[2kwik4u]

@Jim Cosler It's been a shit show. Here's 12+ pages of light reading for you on others problems.

For reference. I'll never finance with Yamaha again. I didn't completely like the terms when I bought, feeling VERY heavily they bait and switched me with the "finance offer". Then the screw up the transition back from Synchrony. The new Yamaha finance website looks like an 8yr old made it from a template in about 30 minutes. Does NOT give a sense of "warm and fuzzy" about having them take my payment each month.

 

[Jim Cosler]

@Jim Cosler It's been a shit show. Here's 12+ pages of light reading for you on others problems.

Argh! I will read through it all. Looks like this could easily be a class action.. I may have to start with a letter to the Board of both companies and a consumer complaint.

 

[2kwik4u]

Argh! I will read through it all. Looks like this could easily be a class action.. I may have to start with a letter to the Board of both companies and a consumer complaint.

I think there has been some talk of a class action suite against Yamaha over it. No idea if it's gotten any traction though.

At this point I'm not out any money/fees/etc, so I wouldn't qualify anyway, but I'd support one if it came through.

 

[rrmidden]

I was going to Reference the big Thread that 2kwik4u did, but I don't have much to add to anything else.

Our Loan got transferred too, I called, got a live person within 5 Minutes, got everything setup for my Auto Pay (that I previously had with Synchrony) in another 5 minutes, and haven't had a problem since. Every time I see something like this, I just assume that I talked to the only competent person at Yamaha Finance and he quit shortly after my phone call.

 

[HangOutdoors]

@Jim Cosler Not real sure about the paying 6 months of payments in advance you mention. Financing typically doesn't work like that. So I am curious and would like to understand.

If you advance pay on a loan anything extra goes to principal during that time period/billing period, it does not negate the next period. So I am confused at your statement. Additionally, interest cannot be earned by the financial institution till the time period is within that billing cycle. I cannot pay a payment for September, in July since the interest has not accrued, that is why it would be put to principal.

Also, if you could pay payments forward, why would you pay heavy interest loaded payments forward on interest that hasn't been earned as of yet. Not sure what synchrony was doing, but it sounds as if Yamaha got it correct. If Synchrony was taking future payments that included unearned interest they have some pretty big problems and questions to answer.

Unless I am missing something.

 

[Robconn]

I’m looking into my credit union. It may be the way to go. Currently I have a step loan that was transferred from Synchrony to YAMAHA. Will Keep you posted. Plus, I agree, on the bait and switch aspect. Now when I wanted to trade my boat in as an advertised option offered to me at time of purchase, the answer now is “not enough interest from customers, so Yamaha pulled the plug on program.” Then when I pushed more , “no you did not have the correct financing in order to qualify” that was never mentioned at time of purchase. Need $12,000 to make up for negative equity in order to begin another Yamaha purchase. For now, it’s cheaper to keep her. I knew at the time of purchase I was interested in trading up. Was a strong influence on purchasing the boat. I hope your financing issues are resolved. I would shop around and get out of their control. P.S. next boat I will getting alternate financing for sure.

 

[HangOutdoors]

@Robconn I used a new Credit Union in the area who gave me a good rate and also mentioned that they do not sell their loans. Additionally they can give me Title within 48 hours after payoff, hard copy or they will draw up something temporary to give to a buyer if I sell the boat to a private individual. They deal with a lot of boat transactions I guess. Only have been with them a few months but hopefully the experience will be smooth. They had no problem doing 180 or 240 month financing. I guess it depends on the loan amount.

 

[Robconn]

I financed my jet ski and one vehicle with credit union. Both loans paid in full. Never an issue. They have 10 day grace period. Never used but good to have as synchrony was zero tolerant.

 

[Enduro900]

@Robconn I used a new Credit Union in the area who gave me a good rate and also mentioned that they do not sell their loans. Additionally they can give me Title within 48 hours after payoff, hard copy or they will draw up something temporary to give to a buyer if I sell the boat to a private individual. They deal with a lot of boat transactions I guess. Only have been with them a few months but hopefully the experience will be smooth. They had no problem doing 180 or 240 month financing. I guess it depends on the loan amount.

Hang, I see you are in Michigan as well. Did you use Advia Credit Union?

Glad you are liking the new boat!

 

[HangOutdoors]

No. Alliance Catholic Credit Union

 

[Jim Cosler]

@Jim Cosler Not real sure about the paying 6 months of payments in advance you mention. Financing typically doesn't work like that. So I am curious and would like to understand.

If you advance pay on a loan anything extra goes to principal during that time period/billing period, it does not negate the next period. So I am confused at your statement. Additionally, interest cannot be earned by the financial institution till the time period is within that billing cycle. I cannot pay a payment for September, in July since the interest has not accrued, that is why it would be put to principal.

Also, if you could pay payments forward, why would you pay heavy interest loaded payments forward on interest that hasn't been earned as of yet. Not sure what synchrony was doing, but it sounds as if Yamaha got it correct. If Synchrony was taking future payments that included unearned interest they have some pretty big problems and questions to answer.

Unless I am missing something.

I understand how additional payments go towards principal, but this is how Synchrony and Yamaha both work it. Lets say someone's payment is $300 and you pay $350 (extra $50 towards principal), your next billing statement reads that you owe $250 (it also shows a reduction in principal). If you pay the $250, you are on schedule, no need to pay your full usual monthly payment of $300. If you continue to pay the scheduled payment plus $50 in month 2, your next bill would read you owe $200. After six months of this your normal $300 payment would already be paid ahead and your bill would show Amount Due=$0 If one did this, like me, for years, I could have gone for months without making any payment and everything would still be on time.

 

[vramsaran]

Has anyone been able to speak to anyone @ Yamaha finance ? I haven't gotten a statement since Oct 2020. I've requested numerous times via e mail ( when I call I'm put on eternal hold ) directions on how to pay toward principal after making the monthly boat payment. Still no way to contact them .

 

[Jim Cosler]

Has anyone been able to speak to anyone @ Yamaha finance ? I haven't gotten a statement since Oct 2020. I've requested numerous times via e mail ( when I call I'm put on eternal hold ) directions on how to pay toward principal after making the monthly boat payment. Still no way to contact them .

Yamaha finance is a trainwreck. They stopped sending me statements for a while as well, but now they are coming again. I am looking at starting a petition to send to Yamaha Corporate for those of us who have been wronged. Wondering how many would be willing to express their disatisfaction?
I love my boat, but there have been issues and Yamaha Finance was the nail in the coffin for me.

 

[Slant555]

@Jim Cosler Not real sure about the paying 6 months of payments in advance you mention. Financing typically doesn't work like that. So I am curious and would like to understand.

If you advance pay on a loan anything extra goes to principal during that time period/billing period, it does not negate the next period. So I am confused at your statement. Additionally, interest cannot be earned by the financial institution till the time period is within that billing cycle. I cannot pay a payment for September, in July since the interest has not accrued, that is why it would be put to principal.

Also, if you could pay payments forward, why would you pay heavy interest loaded payments forward on interest that hasn't been earned as of yet. Not sure what synchrony was doing, but it sounds as if Yamaha got it correct. If Synchrony was taking future payments that included unearned interest they have some pretty big problems and questions to answer.

Unless I am missing something.

Reading the initial posting I was thinking the exact same thing. I’ve never seen financing such that you can build up a bank of future payments. I’ve only ever known financing deals to apply any funds over the stated monthly payment to be directly applied to the principal.

 

[HangOutdoors]

@Slant555 Yes, that was were I was confused. There is also the legality of taking money on interest for future periods that hasn't accrued yet.

 

[suke]

Reminds me I want to adjust my auto payment. I always try to pay off things as early as possible and generally round up to the nearest whole dollar for an even payment amount. When I get bonuses and such I normally drop a larger lump sum on these things. It's kinda nice that Yamaha basically treats your account like a credit card. If you pay more it will reduce your monthly obligation. Would be nice to get ahead so much to a point if things ever got tight I could take a month or so off. It's crazy on these long loans even if you pay like $20 more a month over the life of the loan it could mean you pay it off years early. Always have done that with my mortgage. Even paying $10 more a month takes years off my mortgage. Granted I don't plan to stay in this house forever, so really just means when I go to sell I would have paid down principal and added some additional equity. I hope my boat is paid off before the warranty runs out, at which time I'll sell it. Definitely found you don't own these new boats outside of warranty. HAHA!

 

[Mustangswan]

@HangOutdoors Like Jim said above with the way Synchrony was stating that you where pre-paying your next months payment is correct. That’s exactly what they were doing on my account.
I will never finance through Yamaha again. They still hold the paper on my boat but it should be paid off before the 2.99% rate jumps in June so I have not bothered to switch banks. I was going to switch banks when Yamaha took over but there were so many people trying to get there titles doing the same thing and it was taking them months so I figured I would wait a little. Seemed to have gotten a little better and now decided to just get it paid off by June. And since I am good with my ‘16 212X I don’t plan on dealing with them again.

 

[HangOutdoors]

@Mustangswan Still confused over it.

If I am prepaying my payments then I am paying interest for periods that haven't occurred. For example. If I borrow, for the sake of this exercise, $30,000 over 60 months and my payment is say $600 per month. And I could pay the payments in advance, why would I possibly want to do that if it is not bringing the principal any further down than if I just paid them over time the same way. So basically the bank gets their money and interest quicker without benefit to me. So I pay 10 payments in advance and I would get the next 9 months without payment, yet my principal balance would be the same in 10 months as it is right after I make the advance payments. Seems like Synchrony is bending people over but good, if they are making advanced payments. So technically I am paying extra interest over the life of the loan based on that I accelerated payments which I wouldn't of paid for if I just took the same funds and paid the additional to principal. And the interest that I pay them doesn't negate with the accelartion. Doesn't seem prudent.

 

[1WetBoat]

Reminds me I want to adjust my auto payment. I always try to pay off things as early as possible and generally round up to the nearest whole dollar for an even payment amount. When I get bonuses and such I normally drop a larger lump sum on these things. It's kinda nice that Yamaha basically treats your account like a credit card. If you pay more it will reduce your monthly obligation. Would be nice to get ahead so much to a point if things ever got tight I could take a month or so off. It's crazy on these long loans even if you pay like $20 more a month over the life of the loan it could mean you pay it off years early. Always have done that with my mortgage. Even paying $10 more a month takes years off my mortgage. Granted I don't plan to stay in this house forever, so really just means when I go to sell I would have paid down principal and added some additional equity. I hope my boat is paid off before the warranty runs out, at which time I'll sell it. Definitely found you don't own these new boats outside of warranty. HAHA!

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away that is how Yamaha used to do some of the loans. When i bought my first wave runner in 95, I was actually given a Yamaha Credit Card, not sure who the bank was back then. As you made payments you had available credit on your card and could use it to buy Yamaha products etc.. from Yamaha dealers. After I paid off my wave runner quickly i got rid of the card.