I thought I would update the community with my experience, in case anyone needs the information. According to Ally (for Ohio) they send the paper title with a lien release statement directly to the County Clerk of Courts. The Clerk of Courts then releases the lien and sends the title to the owner. This is how the process is supposed to work according to Ally, even though I was told multiple times by their CSR that the title would be mailed directly to me. What Ally did was send the paper title to another county (so they claim) where it apparently dissapeared, as no one that I spoke with was able to locate the paper title. According to the County Clerk of Couts they DO NOT accept paper titles from banks, they only accept electronic lien releases. I was finally able to get a Notorized Statement of Lien Release from Ally, which I took to my local County Title Office, where they were able to release the Lien and issue me a duplicate title. The entire process took about 30 days from the date my pay off posted.
My advice to anyone dealing with getting a title from Ally is to bypass the foreign call center and deal directly with the Title and Lien Department. This is an outsourced group in Maryland. If you keep requesting to be transfered they will eventually get you to one of their agents. Record the phone number and agent's name in case you need to call multiple times. If I hadn't taken action, I would probably still be waiting for a title that no longer exists.
