She may need it to get to work or for an emergency such as quoted. Do you people realize the low end used car market is still recovering from the cash for clunkers fiasco which took so many cars off the road?
She may live in an area where there is no realistic alternative to owning a car.
This is nasty, vicious exploitative stuff and will invite draconian legislation from the Elizabeth Warrens in congress that we will all have to pay for. Lenders, not just borrowers, have a responsibility to be responsible and reasonable as well.
I don't want congress writing more legislation to foul up the credit market and hurt the very people it is supposed to help. But that is exactly what is going to happen if lenders (and their muscle) don't act responsibly.
At that point. It’s not her car. The owner allows her the privilege to drive it while she pays for it. She can’t pay, she can’t drive.
Pretty simple.
The car is 9 years old. She has a >$350 payment on a nine year old car minivan. I'm just guessing, but I think she was more than 1 month late.
“Before everybody piles on, I’m fed up with this big brother stuff. THREE DAYS late on a payment?”
Actually, I am with you. This kind of action could come back to bite the lender if the vehicle was not available for an emergency and someone was seriously injured or worse. How far we have fallen as a nation!
I am sorry. I rarely disagree with you. But I absolutely love this program and actually hope is is extended with other areas. Perhaps if you don’t pay your mortgage, you cannot get into your home. This has so many opportunities for America. I just can’t wait to see them evolve.
Did this come from legislature or the lenders? Gov’t shouldn’t have anything to do with this. If it’s the lenders, only 3 days seems a bit much, I thought the norm was 10 days.
There must be other finance options that do not use this method but still,
a Credit score below 650 isn't a bad credit rating, below 500 yes.
Ignoring the repo guy calling you more than once isn't a good idea either.
Well said, thank you!
Thanks for inserting a little reality (and humanity) into this discussion. When I read some of these comments, I realize why some of the stereotypes about heartless conservatives exist. Also, this is an open invitation to Congress to legislate in this area if this becomes an industry standard. Despite how awesome this sounds on a conservative message board, I guaran-damn-ty you the average voter will be repelled by it.
In case you hadn’t noticed it wasn’t the first time.
Good point.
Thank you for posting this. Since when does 3 days late warrant such tactics? That is what late charges are for, higher interest rates, etc. All of that stuff banks have done for years to cover their risk of non-payment.
I do feel this woman’s pain. I recently missed a payment on a HELOC loan. Not because I couldn’t pay, but because I was working my butt off, long hours, and accidently missed the payment. They had a debt collector calling me a dozen times a day from an unidentified long distance number. I do not answer calls unless I know who they are from. The caller never, NEVER, left a message to say they were from the bank/ collector. I finally got pissed one night after they called 3 times in less than 5 minutes! I was even more angry when I found out who they were. Oh...and I have a credit score in the top 10%, so I ain’t no low life slouch.
I told them to stop calling and I would take care of the payment at the bank, not with them. They got rude with me on the phone and I hung up on them. Nasty, nasty people. I then gave a piece of my mind to my bank when I made the payment. It was days late, not a month...days.
So to those who think that such stories only happen to low-lifes, I am posting to say...no they don’t. Personally I think the banks are getting desperate again, down right desperate.
Did you actually read the article? Well, here’s a hint: “ a single mother who stopped working to care for her daughter. It was not the only time this happened: Her car was shut down that March, once in April and again in June.”
Apparently you don’t have much in the way of “real life” experiences to understand what a “deadbeat” is. She didn’t have to stop work to care for her daughter...she most likely was on welfare and the state had free daycare available.
I’ll bet that she had the latest entertainment devices in her home and her cell phone bill was greater than her car payment. On top of that, all of her furnishings for the “home” were from rental companies.
In my early years I was poor as a church rat and the only vehicle I could buy (with cash) was a 1960 El Camino with holes in the floor boards and burned a quart of oil every 150 miles. However, I paid cash for it for two reasons: (1) was that I could not get credit and (2) If I got credit I was afraid that I could not pay it back. However, it worked as a source of transportation TO WORK (something that deadbeat didn’t understand) and as I improved my financial standing with time, I was able to buy other things....and actually pay for them.
This is a story written by a liberal “bleeding heart” socialist who hates any mention of responsibility for one’s own actions.