r/mazda • u/SnooLemons590 • 6h ago
Mazda Financial Services warning!
Might be a vent but something to watch out for!! I leased a Mazda CX-5 through Mazda Financial Services in 2020. Three years later, I decided to buy out the lease and finance the vehicle. I financed the lease buy out through my local bank. Another 3 years pass as I joyfully drive my CX-5 until, one day, a tree falls on my car. The car is deemed a total loss.
As I go to file my insurance paperwork, I discover something...peculiar. The title had never been transferred from Mazda Financial Services to my local bank. That's strange, I thought, but should be easily resolved. After about a month of back and forth between myself, my bank, and Mazda Financial Services, I learned that when I leased the vehicle back in 2020, Mazda Financial Services never procured the title from the dealership. The dealership of course also does not have said title because their records state that they sent it to...Mazda Financial Services.
Since 2020, no one has had my vehicle title. "Do I get all my car payments back since no one owned my car?" I jokingly ask. No one laughs.
This is where my journey truly begins. For the past 2 months, I have been trying to get Mazda Financial Services to request a duplicate title so the title can be transferred to its rightful owner: me. My insurance cannot pay out my total loss claim unless I have a perfected title that correctly states I own the vehicle. But Mazda Financial Services, despite being LISTED ON THE TITLE AS THE OWNER OF THE VEHICLE, claims they cannot file a request for a duplicate title because...they never had the title and they were no longer the owner of the vehicle as of 2023.
After calling twice a week for the past 2 months, speaking to the DMV, and speaking to my insurance, I finally got someone at Mazda to submit the request for a duplicate title to the DMV. They, however, chose to submit the request through mail. A mail request takes 8-10 weeks to receive a title. A request online takes...2 days to receive a title.
Again I call. I am paying for a totaled car, the insurance on the totaled car, a rental car, and the lump sum payout from a car I had mostly paid off. I ask them to submit the request for a duplicate title through the DMV online portal. "Mazda just doesn't do that." I ask why. "They just don't." I ask to speak to someone who can do that for me. "There's no one that can do that for you. You can't get a company to change how they do things just for one person."
What wonderful customer service. I asked to speak to a supervisor. None are available (spoiler alert - none are ever available.) I'm told a supervisor will call me back though. I have done this at least 6 times now. No supervisor has ever called me back.
I asked to speak to their title department. Their title department "does not have phones." I asked if they had email addresses. They do not. I asked if they have computers or internet access or if they are locked in a small, windowless, faraday cage. No one knows. The title department is an enigma.
I asked how to file a complaint. There is another number I have to call. I call it, sit on hold for 2 hours, and am supplied with a mailing address for Mazda Corporate. The same mailing address that is on their site. Why tell me to call?!
The title issue is annoying and a bureaucratic nightmare but likely rare and irrelevant to anyone thinking of using Mazda Financial Services. The customer service, however, is! A company that does not have supervisors, no way to escalate questions or concerns, and departments that do not apparently have phones or computers is not a company anyone should willingly pay money to. So watch out! Beware! Do not purchase!