All About Santander Consumer USA Lawsuits

Santander Consumer USA settled with the Justice Department on September 30, 2021 to the tune of $134,000. The company denied early motor vehicle lease terminations to qualifying service members violating the servicemembers Civil Relief act. They repossessed vehicles for over 1,112 service members without a court order. this federal law is designed to allow service members to terminate a motor vehicle lease prematurely without penalty if they enter the service or receive orders for a deployment or permanent change of station, but Santander Consumer USA did not honor this, denying termination requests from service members who were deployed, and eventually repossessing their cars and damaging their credit. 

Santander settled a lawsuit with the state of Massachusetts over subprime auto loans for $5.56 million. The company settled lawsuits for the same issue with 33 States and the District of Columbia. In the lawsuit the state of Massachusetts alleged that the company did not give consumers enough information about the wage efficiencies on auto loans will be calculated after their cars were repossessed so consumers who struggled with debt did not receive the legally required information about repossession and collection actions. Similarly, the company violated protection laws by providing loans to borrowers who were very likely to default, iolating underwriting considerations that were put into place after 2019. 

In Ohio, Santander settled a lawsuit for $1.9 million to resolve claims about the repossession notices they sent. This lawsuit alleged that Santander violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act, the Ohio Uniform Commercial Code, and the Ohio Retail Installment Sales Act by sending consumers a notice of intent to sell property letter after their vehicle has been repossessed. 

The Colorado attorney general announced in September that Santander Consumer USA had settled over allegations of violating Colorado consumer protection laws by exposing Colorado consumers to high levels of risk and knowingly giving consumers auto loans knowing that they were very likely to default on that loan. They settled for over $3 million dollars.

Santander has been at the receiving end of multiple class action lawsuits regarding their Fair debt collection practices. Multiple allegations have come forth against the company for violating the telephone consumer protection act and the fair debt collection practices act by using heavy-handed tactics to force consumers to pay loans, making repeated and harassing phone calls, and charging improper fees.

Santander faced a securities class action lawsuit in 2014 filed in the state of New York and another filed in the state of Texas for legal issues involving revenue sharing and gainsharing payments.