Yes, it’s another angry open letter. Yes, it’s about my car issues again. But the world needs righting, and I might actually send this one.

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Dear Chrysler Financial,

Your website touts a lofty mission statement:

We are inspired and empowered to deliver exceptional financial products and services.

Let me be among the many who are probably congratulating you for accomplishing your mission. I am an account holder with a lease held by your company and I’ve found your lease transfer process to be exceptionally BAD. My experience trying to sign over my lease to a friend has been painful at best. You really ought to send me some Excedrin with that next round of paperwork.

So far, the lease transfer has progressed thus:

During my initial call to inquire about transfer process, I was routed to a person for whom English is obviously not a first language. He did not understand what I meant by “lease transfer.” I tried “lease assumption.” That did not work either. I was put on hold and waited for a supervisor who fortunately did speak English but unfortunately tried to talk me out of the transfer. I had to cut her off three times, the last very rudely, to get her to just give me the information I want.

Your terms are reasonable: a credit check for the new lessee for $50, and the final transfer for $250. These are normal market practices. Toyota, Honda and Ford have similar standards. It is your time frame that makes you truly exceptional among your peers. After requesting the credit check paperwork, I was informed that I could expect it to be delivered in 10-14 working days. You would do the U.S. Postal Service a grave disservice by assuming such a long delivery time frame, so you managed to delay the blank, not pre-populated paperwork exactly 6 days before even placing it in their capable hands. Trust me, I checked the postmark.

What you were doing with it for those 6 days is anyone’s guess.

The new lessee filled out the credit check form and mailed it, along with the $50 check, the day after we received it. Today I was informed that the credit check was received on January 19th and is processing. Let me clarify: you received a credit check request over a week ago and are still processing it. When I had my credit check to lease the car in the first place, it took two minutes. Unless you are writing to the credit bureaus by hand and sending the inquiries by tugboat, there is no reason that a credit check should take this long.

This processing throughput time is indeed exceptional. Have you even heard of Lean Methodology? It’s not just for manufacturing anymore – give Toyota a call.

The customer service representative then told me that I could not have the actual transfer paperwork until the credit check was complete. When I asked about a time frame for that, he said it might be another week or so, and that the processing of the transfer would take 30 to 35 days after they receive the second round of paperwork back from me. I’m sure you are all very busy figuring out ways to spend that 1.5 billion dollar loan you just received. I hear that you’re planning to use it to make financing more accessible for more customers,and I imagine that probably makes it difficult for you to deal with the financial needs of your existing customers.

Don’t worry. I completely understand.

Chrysler Financial, why can you complete a lease process in mere minutes when I am at a dealership and then fail to provide any kind of timely service when the exact same process is being done again? By the time the transfer is complete, we will have been working on this for over two months. Two months, when it could have taken two days if you wanted to be normal and not exceptional.

Perhaps it’s not so bad to be status quo after all.

Your vision statement is also on your website, and I am sad to inform you that although you accomplish your mission admirably, you fail miserably in achieving this vision:

To be the first choice provider of financial services for our dealers, customers and partners.

If I had no other vehicle financing options, I would buy a car on a high-interest credit card rather than apply for services through Chrysler Financial again.

Unapologetically,

Rebekah