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Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

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Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's odd to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting him to say 'hey, there's a problem with your account.' I imagine there's a lot more money to be made making someone pay for the fees and costs of a repo, than a phone call asking them to pay a few dollars. Although his friend could also be lying about the few dollars part.

That would be an insane practice. The internal overhead is a pain. Repo is a last effort to protect the asset rather than a way to cure an account. Even with repo fees there's no guarantees you're getting that money back and the asset won't be worth as much if the customer doesn't true up. General industry practice people are put in delinquency buckets, and generally not by amount but in the 'are they past due or not…

I’m fairly convinced a lot of places give loans with horrific interest rates hoping person defaults. They repo the car. Resell it. The person usually has only mostly paid interest and still owes most of the original price of the car plus fees.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#372
post #36

Well if this is how the new cars are gonna be, I guess I'll just go ahead and teach myself to be a Car Guy so that the one I have now will run forever. It's not that I'm afraid of missing a payment. At this point I would probably buy the car outright. But after the robo-signing debacle with BoA repossesssing houses that they were never party to, the mere capability renders the machine fundamentally untrustworthy.

> the mere capability renders the machine fundamentally untrustworthy. I've said this a couple of times before, but I find it fairly astonishing that we don't have legislation covering what manufacturers are allowed to do to a product with embedded devices after a user has purchased it. I want to be very clear - after I have bought a product, ANY CHANGE WITHOUT MY CONSENT done by the embedded software at the behest o…

Oh, maybe you also want your TV not phoning home with it's usage stats? Or even have a root privilege on your iPhone? /s

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#373
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money order, as those can't be reversed after they're cashed (AFAIK). Most modern forms of payment offer some level of consumer protection, as in they can be canceled or reversed. TBH a repo business mi…

Isn't a cashier's check from your bank also not cancelable?

Look up craigslist scams. "My agent will come and pick up your goods, and give you a cashier's check."

After 5 days, the check is discovered to be fake, and you have to pay the money. They're taking advantage of the payment lag.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#374
post #304

True story: my neighbor's lease payment was under, by a dollar or two, no more. An error in his banking practices, I guess. They came and repossessed it in the middle of the night. He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. Someone who's more up on this sort of stuff can explain that. A week late…

> He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money order, as those can't be reversed after they're cashed (AFAIK). Most modern forms of payment offer some level of consumer protection, as in they can be canceled or reversed. TBH a repo business mi…

A repo also probably has a very financially unreliable customer base.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#375
In college, a roommate of mine was double-parked, or parked in a fire zone, or something, in our 8-house cul-de-sac. He ran upstairs to get something from his room, and a tow truck appeared (this all happened in well under 5 minutes).

When he came out, he argued with the tow truck guys a bunch, but they kept hooking up his car and arguing back and couldn't be reasoned with, etc etc. My friend sat on the hood to keep them from towing it. The tow truck operators threatened to call the cops, so my friend called the cops instead.

Before the police showed up, an SUV showed up with some tow truck heavies with, no doubt, plenty of illegal weapons on them, just to spectate and make sure things went the way they wanted.

Once the police showed up, the story changed a bit, and all of a sudden he could get his car unhooked for a "drop fee" that was 2x the minimum tow cost, I believe (memory hazy here). It was the law in Santa Clara County, but of course, the tow truck operators weren't going to volunteer this information.

Lesson learned. If someone's about hooking up your car, get in your car and drive away, unless it's in the air already. Don't even talk to the thugs.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#376
post #304

True story: my neighbor's lease payment was under, by a dollar or two, no more. An error in his banking practices, I guess. They came and repossessed it in the middle of the night. He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. Someone who's more up on this sort of stuff can explain that. A week late…

> He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money order, as those can't be reversed after they're cashed (AFAIK). Most modern forms of payment offer some level of consumer protection, as in they can be canceled or reversed. TBH a repo business mi…

How am I the first commenter to mention cash?!

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#378
post #366
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money order, as those can't be reversed after they're cashed (AFAIK). Most modern forms of payment offer some level of consumer protection, as in they can be canceled or reversed. TBH a repo business mi…

> I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money order, as those can't be reversed Ha, out of nowhere a use case for Bitcoin appears.

Til that BTC you paid with drops in value to nothing because it's not pegged to anything.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's odd to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting him to say 'hey, there's a problem with your account.' I imagine there's a lot more money to be made making someone pay for the fees and costs of a repo, than a phone call asking them to pay a few dollars. Although his friend could also be lying about the few dollars part.

That would be an insane practice. The internal overhead is a pain. Repo is a last effort to protect the asset rather than a way to cure an account. Even with repo fees there's no guarantees you're getting that money back and the asset won't be worth as much if the customer doesn't true up. General industry practice people are put in delinquency buckets, and generally not by amount but in the 'are they past due or not…

This guy is as straight an arrow as they come (although I'm not going to provide any PII on him). Betting on him to default would be a very bad bet.

I know he had to pay much more than the under-amount: fees & whatnot. So I'd assume that GM Finance cleared a profit on this deal.

Yeah, on the repo man accepting payment: I'd almost believe that happened, and he just pocketed the money & reported the car missing.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#380

True story: my neighbor's lease payment was under, by a dollar or two, no more. An error in his banking practices, I guess. They came and repossessed it in the middle of the night. He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. Someone who's more up on this sort of stuff can explain that. A week late…

I saw someone's RV getting repossessed over $50 in 2019. They were clearly living in it. I walked over and handed the repo guy $60. He wouldn't take it. This was in a cul de sac. I parked my truck across the way so that it would not be possible to enter or leave the cul de sac. Someone called the cops. The cops showed up after a few minutes, good response time. The lady living in the RV was told that she could not pa…

Why did you feel the need to give the working class guy a hard time for doing his job? He probably makes an hourly wage or a commission on the vehicles he returns to rightful owners and now he’s facing not making any money for the day or possibly being fired.

He was operating lawfully and you decided it was your job to enforce your justice. I don’t know, just seems wrong. I think it would have been more noble to take her in for the night or take her to a shelter where they can help.

But leave regular guys just trying to put food on their tables alone.

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