Crest Financial Services, LLC

At Crest Financial, we provide families with no credit needed lease options through selected retail partnerships. All customers are set up on a 12 month lease with a 90 day buyout option which allows customers to buyout their lease with very limited fees. Customers are notified of their 90 day...

buyout date in the signed lease agreement. We also remind customers of their 90 day buyout date in the welcome call and the welcome email. We try to remind customers of their 90 day buyout option any time they call in or chat with customer service. The information is also available on our online portal. We cannot and are not obligated to call customers to remind them of this date. The customer did not even request this service prior to her 90th day. We offer several reminders. It is a customer responsibility to make a note of that date and make additional payments as needed to pay off their lease ahead of schedule and in time for the 90 day buyout option. We can often work with customers if they can only a few days after their 90th day, but this customer is now nearly a month outside her 90 days. We can offer her a different buyout option available to customers who pay off in one final payment. The customer can make one final payment of $530.70 before her next scheduled payment on the 18th, and the account will be closed as paid in full.

Ms. [redacted] applied on 6/19/17 via Discount Furniture & Mattress Liquidation using our online application form. That retailer is no longer eligible to submit applications to Crest Financial so that store’s application link is no longer valid, but Ms. [redacted] can review our standard application...

here: https://dealers.crestfinancial.com/Applicants/CreateApplicant/3308 Because Ms. [redacted]’s application was submitted online and information was entered into data fields that transferred to our account management system, there is no copy of her application that can be provided. However, we can confirm that the information in the fields for “spouse, significant other, or family member” submitted on Ms. [redacted]’s application included the following contacts: [redacted] Terms on the application state that, by submitting application, applicant consents to Crest “contacting any person or company listed on my application to confirm application information and to locate updated contact for myself.” On 12/7/17, Ms. [redacted] emailed us (copy attached) regarding her situation, and in response we marked all phone numbers related to her account as “do not contact” as of 12/8/17. This included the two listed above. Since that time, no phone calls have been made to Ms. [redacted] or any contacts submitted as part of her application. The terms of Ms. [redacted]’s lease require bi-weekly payments of $61.40 for 12 months (copy attached). The last payment we received from Ms. [redacted] was on 11/15/17. We have attempted to contact her 21 times via text and email and have yet to receive a response. As of today, her account is past due in the amount of $405.36. We would be happy to work with her to re-establish a payment schedule to get her account back on track. Due to the “do not contact” order on her account, we are unable to do this via phone. If she wishes to propose a payment arrangement via email, using a civil and respectful approach, we’ll work with her on that plan.

At Crest Financial, we provide families with no credit needed lease options through selected retail partnerships. Customers select merchandise from their local retail stores, Crest pays the retailer for the merchandise, and the customer enters in to a 12 month lease with Crest Financial, at the end...

of which they own the merchandise. At the point of sale, customers sign a lease agreement which explains all the terms of the lease. We have attached a copy of the lease agreement for reference. Because we offer leases rather than loans, we do not charge interest. We charge a one-time lease fee at the start of the lease. This is explained in Item 2 of the lease agreement and in the box on the first page of the lease agreement (where the customer signs) labelled “Cost of Lease Services.” We offer a significant discount to customers who buy out their lease within the first 90 days. Unfortunately, the customer is well past their 90th day and this option is no longer available. We do offer another discount to customers who buy out their lease with one final payment any time after their 90th day. If Ms. [redacted] pays $1,490.19 before the next scheduled payment on May 4th the account will be closed as paid. That discount will still be available after that date, but the amount may change slightly depending on the status of the scheduled payment. Our collections team may be able to work out other payment arrangements with Ms. [redacted]. She can call them at ###-###-####.

E-signatures are a legally binding form of signature. If the customer believes the lease agreement was signed fraudulently, they need to file a police report with their local police department. The customer must then send the report into our fraud department so they can open an internal investigation. [redacted] is one of our largest retailers and we don’t have any reports of problems from other customers, but we will investigate the situation once the customer has provided that police report. The customer does need to keep their account current in order to expedite the investigation process. We will continue to operate under the terms of the signed lease agreement until we can definitively prove it was signed fraudulently. The customer needs to do the same. We will do our best to make the situation right after the fact if the account is proven fraudulent.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

We sincerely apologize for this significant error, particularly if our agents weren’t helpful in explaining the situation and what we are doing to fix it. We use a separate company to work with banks to process payments efficiently. There was an error in their system which caused payments processed...

on September 23rd to process again. We have been working tirelessly with this processing company to get the error resolved and the get refunds processed back to consumers. The customer should see the money returned to her account at this time. We are also happy to refund any bank fees charged by her bank (like overdraft fees) because of this erroneous draft. The customer just needs to call in and request a bank fee refund form to be completed by her bank.

Mrs. [redacted] (formerly [redacted], which is the name under which her lease was initiated - copy attached for reference) posted a Google review on this matter to which we've already responded. A screen shot of that response is attached. We are not obligated to report credit, and our lease agreement...

states in section 13 that "we may report information about your lease to credit bureaus." We were unable to report payments for a period of time in 2016 for all of our accounts due to upgrades in our reporting technology. However, her payments from December 2016 through June 2017 were reported automatically to Equifax, but we've been unable to determine why her payment history is not reflected in her Equifax report. We then sent manual reports in late June and early July, and per the disclaimers from Equifax regarding manual reporting, will be reflected in 60-90 days. As noted in our response to the Google review, if Mrs. [redacted] has not yet seen this on her report in another 30 days, we'd like to hear from her so we are aware of it since we cannot see what is or isn't on her personal credit report. We do apologize for the inconvenience.

We suggest that Mr. [redacted] provide us with documentation to support his assertions of full payment within the first 30 days. Although he claims to have done this already back in 2015, unfortunately this documentation is not in our system. If he can do this one more time, we recommend that he send it to [email protected] and it will be handled with the highest priority. If email isn’t an option, he should send it via registered mail to the attention of the Recovery Department, Crest Financial, 61 West 13490 South, Draper UT 84020. He should include his Crest Financial account number on all correspondence, which is 707481-1. Otherwise, the only documentation we have is this agreement signed by Mr. [redacted], indicating he is legally liable for the outstanding balance of $2,619.43. Our system documentation also reflects two scheduled payments returned to us unpaid by his bank, which incurred returned payment fees of $27.00 each. Our system notes do not reflect a single inbound or outbound call that made a live connection with Mr. [redacted] (although several messages were left on his answering machine in late 2014), so there are no call recordings to pull from his account. We hope to get this settled for Mr. [redacted], and look forward to receiving his documentation.

At Crest Financial, we provide families with no credit needed lease options through selected retail partnerships. Customers select merchandise from their locally owned and operated retailer, Crest pays the retailer for the merchandise and the customer leases the merchandise from Crest Financial....

Crest is not responsible for the quality of the merchandise the customer chooses to lease. Customers sign a lease agreement and a receipt of goods document prior to starting the lease. In this case, the customer also signed another document from the retailer indicating that he would take ownership of the merchandise on the 19th of June. Signing the lease agreement initiated the lease. We cannot simply cancel a lease as we have already paid the retailer for the merchandise. The best option available to the customer at this time is to try to work out a return or exchange directly with the retailer, but the retailer is not obligated to worth with the customer this long after the initiation of the lease. As explained in the lease agreement, the customer can return the merchandise through Crest, but he will be responsible for payments for the time that he has had ownership of the merchandise. These are “unpaid costs” and they are explained in Item 7 of the lease agreement. Currently the unpaid costs on the lease are around $250, but the customer will need to speak with our returns department for an exact amount. The customer would need to pay these unpaid costs and then remit ownership of the merchandise. The account would then be closed. The unpaid costs on this account are higher than normal because the customer has missed six of his scheduled payments. The customer has ignored 18 attempts to contact him and to come up with other solutions and is currently more than $150 past due. We have attached a copy of the signed lease agreement, and receipt of goods document for reference.

We sincerely apologize for the error in our payment processing system that caused the customer’s payment to be drafted twice. We have corrected the error for all future payments. We would like to explain the reason for the necessary delay in processing a refund. When we process a payment directly...

through the customer’s bank account (as opposed to a credit card), the payment takes several days to fully process so we receive it. That means that even though the customer’s bank account shows the payment as taken, we haven’t received the funds yet and can’t guarantee that we will. Until we have actually received the payment, something could go wrong resulting in the payment returning to the customer’s account or never fully drafting in the first place. That is why require a copy of the customer’s full bank statement to issue a refund before we receive the payment. We just need to confirm that the payment has processed fully on the customer’s end. If we didn’t confirm that and the payment didn’t process and we offered a refund, the customer would fall into a past due status. We understand this is an inconvenience and we apologize. We have received notice that the payment has fully processed and we have initiated a refund that should appear in the customer’s account within the next few days. We have also attached a bank fee refund form. Because this was our mistake, we are willing to refund any fees charged by your bank as a result of this additional payment.

At Crest Financial, we provide families with no credit needed leasing options through selected retail partnerships. Customers select their merchandise at their local retailer, Crest pays the retailer for the merchandise and the customer leases the merchandise under the terms in their lease...

agreement. Customers must sign the lease agreement prior to leaving the store. The full terms are explained within the lease agreement and customers are expected to read the lease agreement in its entirety prior to signing. Item 7 explains the termination policy. Like all leases, customers are responsible for making payments for the amount of time they have had the merchandise. Scheduled payments keep the customer fairly up-to-date with their payments, but customers may need to pay a small amount to account for each day they have had the merchandise beyond their last scheduled payment. This is called an “unpaid cost.” In order to terminate the lease early, customers will also need to return the merchandise in accordance with the given instructions. Because of this customer’s extenuating circumstances and because he has been such an excellent customer in the past, we have talked with him and worked out a payment arrangement outside of our returns policy that will allow him to keep the merchandise and focus on taking care of his mother.

We appreciate your time in providing this feedback to us. We've been providing leasing solutions for over 11 years and have hundreds of thousands of customers who have successfully navigated the application process over that span of time. We're sorry your experience wasn't a good one, and we would like to re-extend our invite for you to re-apply once 30 days has passed from this application that was not approved. We hope to have you as a satisfied customer in the future!

We're sorry, but we're unable to locate this account in our system based on the identity information listed in this complaint. Please provide a lease or account number or the current/correct name of the individual who is the account owner and we'll be happy to work toward a resolution.

Ms. [redacted] is 13+ months into what was as a 12-month lease purchase agreement. We’ve already extended her agreement by 6 months to lower her payments and given her a two-month hold to help her catch up on her expenses and budget. She’s struggled to make both the original as well as the adjusted...

payments (see attached payment history and fee history) and we’ve adjusted payment dates several times upon her request. Nonetheless, we’d like to help her meet the terms of her agreement and would like to offer her a buyout settlement payment of $166.77 that will allow her to own her merchandise and settle the account. This amount waives all accrued fees for declined and returned payments as well. Since her last two scheduled payments have been declined by her bank, we need to have this lump sum payment made to us no later than July 14, 2017 in order to consider her account settled. If she’d still like to initiate a conversation regarding returning the merchandise and ending her agreement, she can do that by contacting us at (855) 552-7378. However, we cannot begin the return process until the account is current, which requires a payment of $279.39. Ending the agreement ends the lease purchase (rental) period, and all lease/rental payments made to that point are non-refundable.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:this was ONLY document I was given when a date on it. Nothing else was given to me. I was told by the store the Crest would handle the rest of the communication. I received a welcom call where I was at work and requested a call back which never happened. I am not unwilling to show the paperwork like they suggested. I requested a supervisor and was told they would call me back. They never did. I would have provided the paperwork if they would have done what they told me they would.  I have also also spoke with Bikeland, and they said that they no longer use crest, because of lack of communication to the customer. I was told I was not the only person that this has happened too. 
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:This doesn't explain the lack of call back from the company, doesn't explain how the company can expect me to file a police report but would not provide the city information or the retailer information to allow me to do so. Also it's not on the retailer to better verify it is the responsibility of the leasing agency to accept or decline these requests for credit. If the leasing agent isn't getting proper id that is on Crest Financial. Also how can the customer service agents give me a different story everytime? And then try to say my bank verified someone else owned my account. Sounds to me like this is an inside job at the retailer or Crest. I still don't know which retailer even used my account. Can that be provided?
Sincerely,
[redacted]

If Ms. [redacted] believes her signature was forged on a legal document, she needs to contact the police and submit a police report to our fraud department. Our fraud department will conduct an independent investigation and determine an appropriate course of action. That process cannot be initiated without a police report. Ms. [redacted] can email the police report to [redacted]. Our fraud team will investigate and determine a mutually agreeable course of action.

Ms. [redacted] has had the furniture in her possession for over a year, and her rental purchase agreement (section 3) states her responsibility for "maintaining the property in its original condition, normal wear and tear excepted." She's contacted us numerous times stating she couldn't afford the payments, asking about ending the agreement and returning the merchandise, and then not following through on those options. At this time, the options available to her are the ones stated previously. We would be happy to help her reach a solution if she contacts us at (855) 552-7378.

At Crest Financial, we provide families with no credit needed lease options through selected retail partnerships. We do not offer loans, instead we offer leases with a 90 day buyout option. We try to help customers without access to traditional credit financing by providing them the ability to own...

merchandise they may not otherwise be able to afford. We also try to help these customers by reporting their positive payments to the credit bureau Equifax, although this is not a service that we currently advertise because we cannot guarantee results. We report payments to Equifax a month after a payment is made. It may take as long as 3 months for our reports to show up on the customers report and we cannot guarantee that our information will show up at all, or have any impact on the report or score. We do not make any promises or guarantees at all about credit reporting because ultimately it is out of our hands. Our customer service agents could answer this and any questions about credit reporting, but the customer elected not to contact us is any way before filing this complaint. We encourage the customer to be patient and to reach out to our customer service with any future questions. They will be happy to help.