I've Been Paying On My Car For 8 Years (And Owe More Than It's Worth)

[Music] brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Hi, I'm calling because I have an issue that's going on with my car situation of the vehicle I purchased and it is still not um cleared even after year number seven. Okay. Explain to me what you're talking about. Okay. So, I have a 16 cent fusion that I've been paying on since 2017. Um, at this point, my loan was supposed to mature back in 2023 of April. We are now in 2025 of July, and I owe more than what the car is worth, and I need to figure out what I actually owe um, in terms of all these late fees and extensions that were taken out. Okay. So, basically, is it a Ford Motor Company uh, loan or is it a a high interest rate loan? High interest rate loan. Okay. So, you're dealing with a subprime company and you had a bunch of late fees over the years. I did. Okay. And those have not been paid. So, they've been added to the balance. They have. Okay. Is that what the balance is is then? Or I mean, is there something else wrong? Not to my calculations. No. The amount that they're coming up with, I don't know where they're getting this numbers from. I have a full print out of all of my payments and late fees and the repossession that was on the account and it still repossessed the car. They did for one day. Okay. How much are they telling you you still owe? $17,494.31. 31. You still owe that? That's what they're saying. That's what I need investigated. Yeah. Have they printed you an itemized list of all the fees and how they've added up and how they got that number? Not how they're added up, but they did print all the payments and the fees so far, but I believe there is some missing because the information that I received from the company themselves, calling them numerous times to try to get information, I came up with numbers on my own with the printout that I've been asking for for over 3 months. and I just finally got it. Yeah, but they're not they're not giving you a print out of what you actually owe. Correct. Yeah. They mean they have to give you an itemized bill if they've continue to jack up the Okay. Well, you've got you've got two options. Okay. Uh what you're wanting to is to solve for the truth of what is really owed. And your your your guess is is based on your math that it's not 17, but that you do still owe something because you've got a bunch of late fees stacked up and you probably got some repo charges stacked up in there as well that were not paid at the time of the repo. That's my guess. So you're you're think you're thinking that there's somewhere south of $10,000 owed, but something is owed. That's what you're thinking, right? Not that much, but yes, that is true. I said south of 10,000. We don't know how much south. Correct. Z between zero and 10, right? But it's not 17 for sure, but you in your mind because of the math you've done. Um Okay. And what was the interest rate? The interest rate that I had on the car was 18.95. Okay. Okay. All right. You have um two options. Well, you got three options and one of them is not a good option. So, you have two good options. Uh, one is continue the fight that you're doing and your frustration is real. And I go along with your frustration. You're dealing with a subprime lender. They loan money to people who have bad credit. They loan money to people who don't pay their bills. They are not usually nice to work with. You have figured this out. Okay? This is not news to you. You already knew this. And so they're, you know, they're three notches above a lone shark. And so uh and two notches above the pay tote the note guy down in the bad end of town that rips people off even worse. But there for sure it's not a clean business and and it's people who aren't as businesslike as you would get in a different situation. And you've already discovered all that. So your frustration is real. You've either got to plow through that and get to the bottom of this dealing with the morons and incompetence and the I don't cares on the other end of the phone or you got to hire a lawyer. That's your second option. Hire a lawyer and sue them. For $17,000, I'm suing them before I walk away. Okay, that's another option. I would try and say I'm going to devote one more month to this getting to the bottom of this and if you guys can get me a number that we can agree on, I'm gonna get it paid off. But guys, I got to get that and I'm going to have to apparently I'm going to have to talk to somebody's boss over there to find two people. Somebody has two brain cells to rub together. So let's let's you know, let's just keep pushing and fighting for a month. If you can't do that, then you say, "At the end of a month, if I can't get you guys to get to the bottom of this and and together we figure out what is really owed and why and come to agreement on that so I can get this paid, then I'm going to hire a lawyer and I'm going to sue you." Okay, understood. And if that doesn't work, uh, the third option, which is not a good option, is toss them the keys. Tell them to come Yes, that Mhm. Yeah. Tell them to come get it and sue me. Good luck with that because I'm going to counter sue you and we'll see how that repossession thing goes. You're going to get nothing if you do that people. And so I can do that. But I I don't want you to do that cuz two things happen. One is you further destroy your credit and two is you lose control of the amounts and you start having to negotiate on based on their weird numbers, not real numbers. And how about just the fact that I just want my car. I've been paying on it all this time. I want to keep it. Fair. Fair. But you don't want that car for $17,000. Absolutely not. Cuz it's not even worth that. I got that. I don't want that. So, there is a point at which I don't really want this car. That the principle doesn't matter. Okay. The principle of the thing doesn't matter, not the principle of the loan amount. Now, last question or last point to be made. I want to make real sure because when I do something like this and I've done stuff as dumb or dumber than you did when you bought this car at 18 freaking% interest rate. Have you learned your lesson? Are you ever going to do this crap again? No, Dave. I'm going to pay cash. That's right. Okay. Yes, Dave. Thank you. Love you, darling. Thank you for calling. Wow. Uh cuz let me tell you if when you get if you do 18% interest it's because you were scared. Oh yeah. And you think there's anything else life there was no way. No. You feel trapped. No way. These things come out of your mouth that are not true and you start making these absolute fatalistic statements. I've been there. I was forced like they had a gun. I had to had to get a new car. I had to get a car. And let me just tell you there's two dumb things in this. Ford Fusion and 18%. These are two dumb things in one sentence right here. Unbelievable. I'm surprised the dad gum thing lasted seven years. Yeah. But oh my god, what a piece of crap of a car. And at 18% interest. Well, and I guarantee you that it's like it's like buying a Dodge Neon, you know. God, one of those those square Kia that are like cars, man. That But here's the thing. If you miss your payment, I guarantee you that rolled from 18 in the fine print somewhere. It went up to 34% or whatever. I'd be willing to bet that might be they may have done that. They may be carrying a higher interest rate on the unpaid late charges. That's right. There's a possibility that's in the contract. Yeah. Or there's a $10,000 repo fee that got lumped into because you when you sign something that stupid, you don't read it, right? I mean, relief. You literally drive off relief. If you tried to read it, you know, I just I just want just give me some wheels. I got to get to work. This other one keeps breaking down. It's a piece of crap and it's costing me so much and costing you nothing like Ford Fusion 18% money. I'm just saying that that's some serious money right there. And so, oh my god, what a mess. Bless your heart. I've been there, guys. When you do something stupid, here's the thing. Doesn't mean you're stupid. It means you did something stupid. I've done stupid with zeros on the end. I've got a PhD in DUMB. The trick is my my goal has always been and it's worked real well for me is don't do the same stupid thing again. At least learn from it. In other words, now I might do new stupid stuff, but I've got a whole list of things that I don't do anymore. And not doing all of those things has helped me become wealthy. Just all the stupid stuff I used to do that I don't do anymore, right? You know, just I don't do that. And I don't do that. Why? I don't really have to explain it. I don't do that. We don't do that. We don't do that. That nope, we don't do that. 100% of the time we tithe to our church. 100% of the time we don't borrow money. 100% of the time David and Sharon are in agreement before we buy something because when I do something without my wife's agreement, she does something without my agreement. We do stupid stuff. And so this is this is these are basic things that I've learned over the years. And that's why we have this show to help you guys do them. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your