Pioneer Services

Please do not conduct business with Pioneer Military Loans. They are a rip off. I initially set up my allotments with a representative exactly how they instructed me to do so, and after two years they are stating I'm past due because my payments have mysteriously increased out of nowhere. Never was this mentioned for two years. I cannot wait to pay off my loan and never conduct business with them again.
Their customer service is horrible, but I would care less about the service if the business was just better.

Years ago, I entered a rehab on my student account to start paying my account back and to clean up my credit. I put a down payment to start and paid about $150 per month. After one year, my student account was supposed to transfer to William D Ford. I filled the paperwork out but my account was still with Pioneer. I called William D ford. The people there advised me that Pioneer had not released my account to them. I got the run around for a few months before I gave up. This company is a scam and it's the reason why people look at the country the way we do. I'm so glad other people are talking about the crap that these companies pull. Without this information, a person feels like he/she is the only one being scammed.

Here's my story of dealing with this company. I have had several loans through Pioneer, paid through allotment, paid on time and in full. Took out a loan while in Germany to send my wife and kids back to the States on an Early Return of Dependants during an upcoming deployment so she could help her mother who has health issues, set up the normal allotment and deployed had no issues until a few years later. Since missing payments, I have received harrassing phone calls, emails, and threats. This company has discussed my loan with my extended family members without authorization, a direct violation of the FDCPA. Numerous times I have explained my situation and my willingness to pay the loan back, just needed to lower my payment. I have included the last email I received from this company today and my response. I have informed Pioneer that I will provide them any documentation to validate my situation, but they want none of it.

Dear XXXX,

Our records indicate your account with Pioneer Services is seriously delinquent. We have made several attempts to contact you and you have not responded. Your account is past due 3733.75. You have not made a payment since 01-JUN-13. The present balance on your account is 4674.65

If you fail to satisfy your entire past due balance OR contact our office immediately, we must consider additional collection activity to recover your obligation.

CONTACT OUR OFFICE AT [protected] IMMEDIATELY

Respectfully,

Rob Ray
Pioneer Services
P O Box 10487
Kansas City, MO 64171
Phone [protected]
Fax [protected]

Sir,

You information is incorrect. I have responded several times and spoken with Mr. Nate Hamilton and several other representatives since June, and every time I have spoken with a representative, I have explained my situation to them and have attempted to work something out with the company. I will once again explain my situation to you. Since March of 2010 I have been trying everything I can think of to keep myself and my family afloat financially. During my last deployment from April 2008 to June 2009, my wife lost 23 family members and friends, to include both of her grandmothers, a grandfather, and Aunt and Uncle, 2 cousins, and multiple close family friends that she has know since she was a child. To top it all off, in April of 2009, prior to my return from this last deployment, she found out that her father had developed stage 4 non-small cell carcinoma of the liver and lymphatic system that had spread to his lungs, kidneys, and hip. The doctors gave him 6 months. My wife then spent her time from the date of his diagnosis to December 2009 (my return date from Germany) working, essentially raising our kids as a single mother while I was deployed, and being a caregiver to her father as her mother’s health is failing also, taking him to numerous appointments, chemo-therapy, and radiation treatments. When his insurance gave him the run around, every penny she earned went towards his care, as well as, part of my checks. She was extremely close to her father, and had to sit there and watch him waste away, and there was nothing she could do. We were then assigned to Ft Leonard Wood, MO, and even though I told her and my father in-law that I would report by myself to our next duty assignment, and she could stay there and spend as much time with her father as possible; he would not have it, and told her that her place was with me (He is also a veteran..Vietnam..26 years of service-retired). I believe that he wanted her to come with me to Missouri to try and save her from going through anymore pain from watching him die. Needless to say, when he passed that next March my wife was devastated. From that day on, it has been a continual struggle to help get my wife back to functioning even close to how she used to. For several YEARS it was a good day if I could get her to get out of bed and take a shower. She was no longer able to work, taking us from a two income family to one income; she barely leaves the house and cannot drive due to anxiety, bi-polar disorder, depression, insomnia, suicidal ideations, and a plethora of other disorders. Then in October 2010, my wife attempted suicide for the first time. I went to my old chain of command, but received no help and was told to have her committed so I could meet my work schedule without interfering with anyone else. My wife had already lost her father, and I would not and will not abandon her just because she is having some issues right now. She tried to end her suffering again in October of 2012, and my new chain of command was much more supportive of her/our situation. I was able to get her into a behavioral health treatment center in Smithville, MO, where she was able to get intensive personal treatment, and is now seeing a Psychologist and Psychiatrist on a monthly basis. Since that time she has made some forward progress towards getting her life back, but there is still a long way to go, and it has left us financially devastated. In these past three years, I have voluntarily surrendered two vehicles, one motorcycle, sold everything that I had that was worth anything of value, cut out any non-necessities (cell phones, cable, ect.), and used up every bit of my savings to try and stay afloat. I go without new clothes, new shoes, or personal wants. I can't even remember the last time I bought myself new underwear. My kids have gone without new clothes (shop thrift stores), school activities, outings with friends, and other items that their friends get on a regular basis. I haven't even been able to take them to a movie or out to dinner since March of 2010. I have done everything possible to try and meet my financial obligations short of turning to a life of crime. The final straw was in May of this year, when I had nothing to feed my children except pancakes and Ramon noodles for two weeks, simply to try and pay bills. As I have stated, I spoke with your company on several occasions and have explained the situation to the representatives, and have expressed my willingness to pay my debts, but that I just couldn't make that big of a payment. Every time, YOUR company has refused to work with me, wanting a full payment, and if not receiving it, threatening to call my chain of command, telling me that if I had a security clearance it would be revoked, and calling and harassing my father. Better still, calling my wife and threatening her about calling my chain of command and getting me in trouble (thanks..that set her back quite a bit, Nate Hamilton). As I have said before, you can call my chain of command and my father, they both know the situation I am in and neither of them are going to pay my bills for me (I am sure my father would if he could afford it, but he has his own bills to take care of and can't afford to pay my bill with you anymore than I can). So, I HAVE spoken with your company several times. I HAVE attempted to work out some sort of payment arraignment, which your company has refused to even entertain. Have I quite taking every call? Yes..I get tired of telling your company over and over about the situation I am in, and being yelled at, cursed at, and belittled over the phone and your representatives insinuating that I am a dead beat who won't pay their bills, or being told by your representative that I should feed my kids a steady diet of Ramon noodles (already been there) so that your company can get its full payment. I have been a customer of Pioneer Services for years and years, and until these series of events took place, had been making my payment on time, and even after everything took place, I have done everything I could think of to pay my debts. Well, Sir, I can tell you this.. if it comes down to feeding my children, keeping a roof over their heads, and putting clothes on their backs or paying your company a full payment, Pioneer Services will lose that battle every time. Now I also know that eventually your company will charge off this amount as a bad debt, and it will affect my credit for years to come (it is already shot and will not recover anytime soon), they will then claim it on taxes as a loss and receive a tax break for it, putting money in their pocket. They will then turn around and sell the note to some collection agency for pennies on the dollar, and make some more money off of it. I am sure that over the time since I had taken out the loan until I was no longer able afford to pay that high of a payment, I have paid back the amount of the original loan, and now the left over balance is just interest. So I have no doubt that your company is not out any money, and has more than likely made a substantial profit. The collection agency will then begin this whole harassment process all over again, and I will tell them the same thing I am telling you, I don’t have the financial means to make that big of a payment, if you will work with me to achieve a smaller payment, I will gladly begin paying you what is owed, but if not, you can’t squeeze blood from a stone, and no amount of threatening me is going to change the fact that I do not have the means to pay that much and still provide for my family. But it will probably never make it that far due to I am now taking this opportunity to inform you today that I will now be filing bankruptcy, and when I have paid the lawyer the minimum amount he requires (willing to work with me and take payments), I will be contacting you with his information and your company can deal with him. Thank You,

TXXX XXXmer

Very bad service. Do not care to fix what they mess up. Their systems are really out of date. They never sent me my loan documents, and the first payment was a struggle because they do not have an option to pay online, had to get my back to issue them a check (I do not even have checks anymore). Then they are reporting to credit bureaus I was late more than 30 days, when I was late only 6 days. I know I have to pay a late fee, but reporting 30 days late to bureaus is really unprofessional. I called and they say they could not do anything, that I had to dispute it with the credit bureaus. They acknowledge to me on the phone that I was not late more than 30 days, "but that's how their system works". I had perfect credit, except for this now! 5 years of perfect payment history and they just mess it up like nothing. Not customer friendly at all. This loan was for medical reasons, if it was not an emergency, I would have never gone with them. I am a military wife and I am here in the states, I feel bad for deployed soldiers!

Attention
Happy Military Appreciation month. Pioneer Military Loans Preys on soldiers. When we are shot up and forced out of the army these guys secretly drop your disability insurance you had on the loan. The Army needs to adress this situation. These guys need to quit purposely screwing soldiers. Attention Soldiers, steer clear of this company. Yes they will loan you money but if you get injured and become disabled these guys will say you never had insurance on your loan if you became disabled. These guys wrote an article in 2009 about how if alot of us became injured that their company would lose money. Military appreciation? These guys are puposely dropping soldiers insurance.

Post Generals please place this company on post blacklist!

If a large number of borrowers are wounded in combat, our profits may be adversely affected.

Our wholly owned subsidiary reinsures generally all of the credit life and credit accident and health insurance policies sold by us and MBD on the borrowers for the loans we own. These policies pay the loan payments as they become due during a customer's disability due to illness or injury, including war-related injuries, and pay the balance in the event of death including war-related fatalities. Therefore, if a large number of borrowers are injured and disabled in combat, the profitability of our reinsurance subsidiary would be impaired, which could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operation, financial condition and cash flow and may impair our ability to pay interest and principal on the investment notes.

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/sec-filings/091203/PIONEER-FINANCIAL-SERVICES-INC_10-K/#ixzz0npfx0mXK

This company claims to be all about helping soldiers. Not. I was being medically discharged from the army after 19 years service and trying to get my financial affairs in order. After six attempts to contact Pioneer Lending by both phone and email, someone called me and told me that a loan specialist would call and could help me make alternate payment arrangements. The next day, a rude, ignorant female bill collector called from Pioneer and threatened to destroy my credit if I couldn't pay as agreed ($240 a month for six years on a $4000 loan). They didn't care that I was disabled and that my only income would be a small disability pension. This awful company continues to lure soldiers into taking out loans that have exorbitant interest rates and then refusing to help them when they run into problems. They should be barred from making loans to military personnel.