Atty's can collect?

The time to negoiate is prior to pissing somebody off. What'll you do if he returns the account to the OC and they sue you? If this hasn't been chargedoff there's a pretty good chance have enough evidence to prove it's yours.

 

Is it a new car? Any recourse under you states lemon law?

 

What's a guy to do? Well, excuse me for being so brash but in my opinion your thinking is strictly off the wall and out to lunch.

Let me explain a few things and see if maybe you don't agree although you most assuredly don't have to like the truth of it. I would not either. In fact I am somewhat in the same boat as you at the moment at least in a manner of speaking.

First of all, it's not the lender's fault that you bought the wrong car and its not the lenders fault or problem that it don't run and you can't use it. You made an agreement to pay for it and he expects you to keep your end of the bargain no matter what and he has the right to feel that way in most cases. If it was a tote-the-note lot then maybe you would have a leg to stand on in your reasoning but not really even then except in abnormal circumstances. Believe me, I've been there and done that many times over. And right now my car has a small problem and won't run and I can't find a mechanic to fix it and I can't go spend nearly a thousand to fix it when I can probably end up getting it fixed for maybe a couple of hundred or so. I'd go fix it myself if I knew for sure what the problem was but its a complex problem with maybe half a dozen different possible solutions and only one is the right one. So by the time the dealer gets through replacing part after part that didn't work until he finally gets to the right one that fixes it I would probably spend a grand or more and I don't want to do that.

Be that as it may, I still owe the debt and I still have to make the payments even if I never fix it.

Now then lets get down to the lawyer problems.

You will only shoot yourself in the foot trying to make him answer questions he don't have to answer and you will just convince him that fooling with you is a waste of time and he will be much more likely to just forget you and sue you and be done with it. So don't ask him nothing. Demand validation and do it now and be done with it. No foolish questions. They will only hurt you in the long run.

He isn't going to be in any mood to negotiate anything after you ask him all those questions. If negotiating something is what you think you want to do then just contact him and see what is the best deal he will make.

Personally, I would not negotiate anything with him or even talk to him but that's me and you are you so you have to decide what you want to do. What I would do has no bearing on what you decide to do.

Whatever you decide just don't go make a fool of yourself with a bunch of demands like that because that is about all you will be likely to succeed in doing.

 

This may or may not be relevant, you said its not charged-off, and they won't repossess. From the FDCPA:

6) The term "debt collector" means any person who uses any instrumentality of interstate commerce ...
The term does not include

(F) any person collecting or attempting to collect any debt owed or due or asserted to be owed or due another to the extent such activity (i) is incidental to a bona fide fiduciary obligation or a bona fide escrow arrangement; (ii) concerns a debt which was originated by such person; (iii) concerns a debt which was not in default at the time it was obtained by such person or (iv) concerns a debt obtained by such person as a secured party in a commercial credit transaction involving the creditor.

What is default? Past due payments, or past due payments to the point they have accelerated the debt. Is the attorney trying to collect what is past due, or the whole balance?

 

Just to try and clear up some confusion for the next guy, your obligation to repay this loan has nothing to do with how bitter you are.

A loan from a company via contract is required to be repayed. The fact that the car turned out to be junk is an entirely separate issue.

The idea for creditnet participants is to repair our past problems and not let those problems happen again. The fact that this is the second time in a row that you've defaulted on a car loan, combined with your above statement leads me to believe there may not be the kind of help available here on CN that you most need NextLevel.

You'll not get anywhere in life until you take full, complete and total responsibility for your own mishaps.

 

How true that is.

 

Some of these latest comments are indeed interesting.

I've spoken many times about how nothing the 3rd party collector can do will make the debt go away. No matter how many violations he may commit nor how heineous they might be the debt is still owed. Not even bankruptcy can pay the debt. Of course, that's speaking from the moral sense and not from the practical sense.

Of course, if the debtor uses the violations and transgressions of the 3rd party collector as a bargaining tool to make him pay the debt to the creditor in lieu of the debtor having to pay it then the creditor has been paid and no debt remains.

"Fixing" one's credit does not do that, of course. It totally ignores the real problem which is the debt itself which is still owed, due and payable.

Ok. Now then, that same anology comes down to buying cars. Those with poor credit are usually forced into buying from the tote-the-note no-credit-check lots where all you need is a job, a telephone and 7 relatives so the guy stands a chance of finding you if you skip out on him.
And they happily drive off in some jalopy that may look good but is nothing but a rolling junk pile and will break down long before the note is paid. And it will break down for the simple reason that the buyer never learned how to check the car out to see how good it was. He never looked for white residue on the inside of the oil cap, never checked the radiator to see if there was oil in the water, never checked the dipstick to see if there was water in the oil, never checked much of anything in fact. If he had he would spend weeks checking all the lots in town only to find that the easy credit lots don't ever have cars that will last until the payments are all made. So a month later it breaks down and now he has major repair bills and he takes the car back or just lets the cops haul it off and he goes hunting for another easy car note.

We see the same type of behavior in people who move from state to state hoping to start a new life. No matter where they go they take their problems with them for the simple reason that their problems are not the fault of those they left behind but are inherent within the person themselves.

Quite often the problem is anger management failure but there are also many other psychological reasons why we doom ourselves to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Sometimes it is alcohol or drug related and quite often it is how we were raised, how our parents lived their lives.

We sometimes tend to be less than pleased with posters who we see coming back again after having resolved their problems and then doing it all over again, needing help yet once again.

We really should not be upset with those few who do that but rather we should realize that usually those folks have other more deeply ingrained problems we don't know about or even realize are there. Problems that we simply cannot help them with nor even hope to understand.

All too often we see people here delving into the morality of various issues. That stems from our deeply held religious beliefs which in and of itself often leads to real problems.

In my personal opinion, I fail to see how any thinking human being can deny or doubt the existance of a higher power, a supreme being, a creator or whatever we want to call it. The irrefutable evidence is right before our very eyes every waking moment of our lives.

But does that belief require us to judge our fellow man, use religion to regulate and control our fellow man? Or is it just a simple requirement that we all follow certain basic principles in dealing with our fellow man?

Personally, I think that morality should ideally be used to control our own actions and not those of others. After all, don't we have the right to decide for ourselves who we will associate with and who we will extend a helping hand to and who we will not?

Personally, when I see some poor motorist on the road who has a flat tire and has no spare, no jack nor even a lug wrench or is out of gas I'm not going to ask him why he didn't have brains enough to take the proper precautions to keep him out of such predicaments.

I'll either help him to the best of my ability or leave him in peace hoping someone else can help him more than I.

Same with credit related problems.

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

OK Bill, now you have ruffled my feathers. I know this thread is NOT about tote your note lots and so on, but this comment especially the comment about someone will 'never' find a decent car at this places is untrue. As all know, my dh and I have a car lot, as a matter of fact we are wholesalers. BUT, I am in the process if converting our lot to a buy here pay here. DH and I were having this EXACT conversation yesterday, as I explained to him, to keep you're customers paying, keep the car running, i.e.; if it breaks down fix it. DH says, it is against the law for me to do that. The law states that if a car has 75k miles or is 6 years I CANNOT warranty it. I say, that does not mean you cannot keep you're customers happy, i.e.; paying by fixing the car at cost, to protect OUR interest in it. He agrees. People that go to buy here pay here are there for a reason. They were unable to pay their previous debts for whatever reason. Therefore buy here pay her lots are taking a risk. They are putting their OWN money out their with someone that has a history of not paying debts. Therefore the dealer cannot go out and by a 10k or 15k vehicle, tell someone that has not previously paid his debts, 'here, you give me 1k and I will give you this vehicle that is PERFECT and HOPE you make you're payments in the future and hope that i get MY money back. Therefore a buy here pay here must go for the more inexpensive units that he can get MOST of his money back with the downpayment. The interest is just the name of the game, the price of bad credit, and where the dealer is going to make his profit. But these tote you're note places are there bc a alot of people NEED them and because someone is not getting the BEST car for the money is NOT bc the dealer is intentionally buying lemons to put out on paper, it is bc the dealer is having to buy what these people are able to cover (most) with downpayment, otherwise the dealer is a MORON>

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

Simply not true. We have repeat customers. And not bc the units are breaking down but bc they trust us and know we have good cars. We send any that are problems straight to the auction.

 

tnobles,

You are more an exception to the rule!! I worked a few years ago for ttn lot. Most, as you say, are at break even w/down payment. I can tell you horror stories about lots all over town. I was privy to their little tricks to push them off the lot.

That isn't to say there aren't reputable ones out there, but they are few and far between. Hopefully DH (and others like him) will have a viable solution soon for you guys so that dealers can put better cars out on the street, and protect their interests at the same time

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

Sorry I ruffled your feathers, but as you may well know or suspect there are a very large number of such car lots here in OKC. I've done business with almost all of them in the past because a few years back I used to go about buying old batteries for a buck a copy and renovating them, hauling the bad ones to the scrap where I got a $1.50 for them and taking the good ones to the tote-the-note lots and selling them for $15 a copy. So I know these dealers personally on a business basis.

Then at a later date, as many here may remember I worked for Dealer's Auto Auction here in Oklahoma City which is the largest auto auction in this part of the U.S. Dealers come here to buy and sell cars and so I learned which of the new car dealers were the "good guys" and which were the bad apples and many who had been my customers in the battery business also came to buy and sell. So I've got a pretty broad range of experience with the auto business and know it's ins and outs pretty well. I also got a good feeling for which lenders are the "good guys" and which are not as a result of the auto auction experience.

I've learned the tricks they use to cover up defects in autos that are the true "lemons" and how to spot the clean up tricks used to cover up flood damaged vehicles, how to check a car for thickness of paint to determine if it's ever been wrecked or repaired or not. I even have a densimometer to do that with. A simple hand held instrument that tells quickly what the density of the paint is as it is swept over the surface of a car and quickly spotting repair jobs, what to look for to see if it has ever had paintless dent repair done on it. Lots of stuff most people never learn.

And I've gone around to all of the tote-a-note lots in town trying to buy a decent vehicle for my son at a reasonable price. We were not looking for an expensive vehicle since he only had $2,000 to spend on a car when he turned 18. There simply weren't any to be found on the lots and he finally settled on a nice little 89 Honda at an auction for $1500 which he promtly tore to pieces. I fixed it quite a few times, mostly lower control arms which he bent by running over curbs and stuff and then the clutch went out and he floorboarded it trying to get it to go after the clutch went out and held it on the floorboards until the engine went out too.

Then we had to go looking again and he finally settled on a 72 Chev Nova from a note lot who told him that they had had the car almost totally rebuilt to make a good car out of it. They claimed they had put it in the shop and had repaired every findable defect. The brakes went out in a week, the carburetor was a pile of junk, the shocks were shot, the radiator leaked, it had no thermostat, the heater didn't work, the turn signals didn't work and much more. He had to fix all of that and he still need serious engine work, it burns a lot of both gas and oil and yet it runs.

I can very well understand your being upset with what I say because you do all that you can to keep your customers happy and their cars in the best possible shape at the best possible price that still allows you to make a profit. I know one such dealer here in town who bent over backwards to do just exactly what you say you did. He sole me one car that got wrecked because of a drunk driver and when that happened he immediately put me in another the very next day. He said it was the best car he had on the lot and I believed him and bought the car. I didn't mind when the timing belt broke, I didn't mind that the car broke down so often that I was spending double the payments just to keep it running every month. I didn't even mind it when the transmission went out and I took it to a shop and paid the man cash to fix the tranny and he didn't do it so I had to get a wrecker and haul it home but when I found out that he had screwed the tranny up so bad that the radiator had to be replaced too and I had already done that but to make matters worse the mechanic had busted the transmission so the core could not even be used and the onboard computer was also screwed in the process so it was going to cost another $2,000 to get the car running again and even if I did I would still have nothing but a car which might be worth maybe $300 at an auction I just had no choice but to give it back to him and go buy something that was new enough to hopefully keep running until the payments were over with.

I hated like the devil to have to make him eat that pile of junk but I simply had no choice in the matter. Both of us hated the way it ended up and the outcome was not good for either of us. He bent over backwards to treat me good and I bent over backwards to treat him as good as I could but often we have no real control over the outcomes but rather can only work with what we are presented at the time.

No matter how good one's intentions are, some things will always go wrong. All that we can do is the best we can do under the circumstances we are presented with.

It isn't the fact that we make mistakes that marks us as being either good or bad but rather what we do about correcting those mistakes or at the very least making sure they don't happen again to the best of our ability that marks us as being either good or bad.

No matter how hard we try, we can't win them all.

We just have to do the best we can with what we have to work with.

We are all going to make mistakes and the important thing is to try to learn from those mistakes .

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

Bill, if you are putting 2k down on a vehicle that is 10 years or older, I must admit, you were definately being ripped off. Of course each m,arket is different but geez.

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

Factoid - Did you know the Chevy Nova was not sold under that name in Mexico. I mean, would you buy a car who's name is "No Go"

No Va.

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

The tote you're notes around here will usually put up a 99-00' for 1k-2k down and then a note for 12 to 24 months. Of course, we are not talking like SUV's or Mercedes or BMW's or the such, but small economical decent units. As far as fixing units to keep customers happy, I will admit is not my goal. But fixing the unit at OUR cost (we have a full time mechanic that gets paid wether he works or not) so that the customer will continue to PAY US. Of course as I stated earlier we are in the PROCESS of doing this, have not done it yet, so I may eat my words but I work at the auction so not only do I know these dealers from the working with them as dealers but I also know them as working FOR them at the auction, and MOST are pretty decent. They do not WANT to repo, they would rather you pay the car off and save them the headache. The ones you have to watch for are the ones that have the more EXPENSIVE units and taking a minimal amount down bc more than likely those are rebuilt, salvage, etc.

 

Re: Re: Atty's can collect?

He bought the car and paid the total price at auction which was $1500. He walked out with a clear title. He paid the auction price. He got a nice low mileage car with less than 15,000 miles per model year on the odometer. It was in great condition and he just totally screwed it up in less than 90 days by being a kid.