<prompt> Human: Not a throw away, because whatever.Tl;dr Accidentally paid off auto loan. Lender now says in order to reopen account Ill be charged a late fee, sent to collections and have credit score dinged.I recently sent a payment intended for my credit card provider to my auto loan provider by accident. The payment had the unintended consequence of paying off my auto loan in full, and then some.The auto loan has a very reasonable interest rate, so while we can afford to pay it off, we can make more money simply by having that cash liquid. I called the loan provider Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp and explained my error. It took them a while to figure out how if they would be able to reopen my account. Apparently this doesnt happen every day shocker.In order to reopen my account under my old terms they asked for a copy of my bank statement showing the debit from my account for the amount of money that was sent to them in error. We had a brief chat about confidentiality and ultimately landed on the painful process of me having to redact every other debit credit on the statement before sending to them.As we were wrapping the call up, the NMAC rep mentioned they would be refunding me in full the amount of money I paid. I asked them to instead refund me the erroneous payment minus what was owed on the car that month. They stated they could not do that.So I asked the obvious question; how would my payment not be considered late then? Their response - it would be considered late, late fees would be applied, my account would be sent to collections and my credit score would be negatively impacted by an undetermined amount.As a loyal NMAC customer who has paid on time, every time for 3 years, not exactly what I wanted to hear. For the privilege of having them reactivate my account I get: charged interest on the remaining balance until I pay it off in full charged a late fee even though the payment was not late sent to collections as if my payment was delinquent my credit score dingedAt this point, weighing whether to simply let them keep the cash and be done with it or deciding of the value of the cash on hand is worth items 1-4 above.What I really want is for them to simply reopen my account, not charge me a late fee, not throw me to collections, not ding my credit score and I will happily pay interest on the remaining balance for the foreseeable future. Too much to ask?Assistant: Apparently too much to ask, they are going by your statement that that payment was in error and not intended for them so they are willing to say OK, we will send back the payment you did not mean to send to us. Making you late on your owed payment.Perhaps they would have behaved differently if you said you mistakenly overpaid themBut too late now. Take the credit score hit or find a way to pay off your credit card, hopefully not late on that.You can always refi the car to raise cashHuman: I did mistakenly over pay them, by 3600. Credit card bill is fine. Trying to decide whether or not its worth taking the hit to have the cash on hand. Or, I dunno, get them to not treat me like someone whos late on their car payment.  <response>: No, you mistakenly paid them. You told them that payment wasnt meant for them.At least that is what I got from your postIf you had said I mistakenly paid you too much that is a different statement and might have worked 