In regards to my car dealership and making partial payments, it seems that despite my conversation with someone in accounting and multiple conversations with the manager, their system is designed to pester me daily until I make full payments.
What I have learned through this experience is that the automated systems for bill collections are set up to have someone call every delinquent account every single day and demand payment. That is very annoying, isn’t it? You bet it is.
I called today and demanded that they remove me from their system -based on my talks with the manager and their accounting department- but they refused and stated that I signed a legal contract and would be responsible for the payments. Yeah, yeah, yeah… My insurance company, Progressive Insurance also signed an agreement with ME that they would cover my medical costs in the even of an uninsured motorist accident but that isn’t happening either!).
So, I told them to just come and pick up the car then. I simply will not put up with harassing phone calls that hinder my progress in making the money to pay my bills. If I was a dead-beat and not keeping in touch with them and not making any efforts and not making partial payments, then I could understand the harassment. But, that is not the case with me. I have gone above and beyond -considering my situation- and I won’t tolerate this kind of treatment.
The girl on the other end of the line simply told me that if I ceased to make payments and let them pick up the car, they would sell it at auction and I would STILL be responsible to re-pay the full amount. Now, that’s laughable -especially considering that they are making out like bandits already (read about Used Car Dealers).
As Bruno would say “Ich don’t think so! Okay!?”
So, things got a little heated in that part of the discussion but I did manage to egg out of her how they play their “deferment game” a little more succinctly than before. Basically, I have to tell her that my “hardship” is over and that I am back at work –even though I do not have a job (i.e. work for myself). Then, they can do a review of what caused the hardship and decide -based on my payment history- whether or not to extend a deferment of one or possibly two months. That way, they will be giving me that time as an extension and I will just pay that much longer on the vehicle.
That’s great but then she told me that because I’ve been making timely payments for several months since my accident, it cannot count as a hardship. The Hell you say! I only ran out of money because I kept paying the note and had to shell out money for prescriptions, medications, a CT scan, an MRI, and costly doctor visits. So, it appears -once again- that because I was trying to “do the right thing”, I am getting screwed over yet again. Yippie-Ki-Yay!
Anyway, I also had to pay a ton on critically overdue maintenance that was promised to have been done already, and she said that *might* qualify for deferment. So, I faxed her the documents and we’ll see what comes of that.
This isn’t really a great situation but it might be workable, because I have spent my money on medical bills related to my wreck with an uninsured motorist who caused me severe injury and I cannot really afford to make the payments right now (since I’m still fighting with Progressive after eight(8) months to get reimbursed!). So, anyway, at least I might be able to keep the car a couple of extra months before I have to figure something else out.
In the meantime, I suppose I will have to deal with the harassing phone calls but I am told that since I have used the “magic words” by telling her I am past my hardship and am back to work, they will get back to me within a day or two about deferring my loan payments. Of course, I cannot expect them to actually call me back, so I have made a note in my scheduler to call them back everyday. Harassment seems to be how they get things done, so I figure that is how to get them to work as well. I guess we’ll see.
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