When the 0%, nothing down financing was introduced in the US, I immediately switched from cash to the financing option. Who can say no to free money? I later received a call from Volvo Car Finance to apply for the financing and was notified via the (broken for the most part) website that I had been approved. Same as everyone else financing as best I can tell.
When the time came, I executed the finance agreement (including notarizing every freaking page and signature!) and sent it in - the paper named Manhattan Motorcars, Inc. as the counterparty. I picked the car up weeks ago and had heard nothing else about making payments...until today. In the mail this morning was my first payment notice: from Polestar Financial Services (Polestar Financial Services) that shows my first payment due Jan 1 - 3 days from now! Short notice for sure. So I first tried to see if there was a bill pay payee I could set up from my Bank of America account - no joy. I then went to the aforementioned website and tried to register - I get an error page that says "Oops, Our website is undergoing some routine maintenance. We're sorry for any inconvenience. Please come back and try again later." Fun.
So I call the number on the invoice and wade through the ACD to get to a real person and they had my loan information but were VERY confused as to what what going on. They had some mention of a "Polestar" product but insisted that Polestar Financial Services was a separate company - they were Volvo Car Finance. "OK, so you see my account?" "Yes. But you had best check with the dealer to be sure you don't also have a loan with this Polestar company also!" "OK, so is my account number the same in your system?" "Yes" "OK, thanks".
I texted Jeff and he called me back immediately - he was very apologetic at how screwed up this all was and that he would escalate on his side to avoid the misunderstandings at VCF. I also recommended to the VCF agent that she also escalate: that I was likely not the last who would be trying to sort this out. Let's hope Polestar Finance/Volvo Car Finance gets this sorted out posthaste.
Moral of the story? If you use a billpay service, just set up Volvo Car Finance as the payee and put in the account number from the Polestar Finance paperwork and it should work correctly. I plan to verify day after tomorrow that they actually received and credited my payment. I'll update here then. I don't mind beta-testing the car software, but I'm not so keen on testing out the financing setup with my credit rating at risk.
When the time came, I executed the finance agreement (including notarizing every freaking page and signature!) and sent it in - the paper named Manhattan Motorcars, Inc. as the counterparty. I picked the car up weeks ago and had heard nothing else about making payments...until today. In the mail this morning was my first payment notice: from Polestar Financial Services (Polestar Financial Services) that shows my first payment due Jan 1 - 3 days from now! Short notice for sure. So I first tried to see if there was a bill pay payee I could set up from my Bank of America account - no joy. I then went to the aforementioned website and tried to register - I get an error page that says "Oops, Our website is undergoing some routine maintenance. We're sorry for any inconvenience. Please come back and try again later." Fun.
So I call the number on the invoice and wade through the ACD to get to a real person and they had my loan information but were VERY confused as to what what going on. They had some mention of a "Polestar" product but insisted that Polestar Financial Services was a separate company - they were Volvo Car Finance. "OK, so you see my account?" "Yes. But you had best check with the dealer to be sure you don't also have a loan with this Polestar company also!" "OK, so is my account number the same in your system?" "Yes" "OK, thanks".
I texted Jeff and he called me back immediately - he was very apologetic at how screwed up this all was and that he would escalate on his side to avoid the misunderstandings at VCF. I also recommended to the VCF agent that she also escalate: that I was likely not the last who would be trying to sort this out. Let's hope Polestar Finance/Volvo Car Finance gets this sorted out posthaste.
Moral of the story? If you use a billpay service, just set up Volvo Car Finance as the payee and put in the account number from the Polestar Finance paperwork and it should work correctly. I plan to verify day after tomorrow that they actually received and credited my payment. I'll update here then. I don't mind beta-testing the car software, but I'm not so keen on testing out the financing setup with my credit rating at risk.
