Expert: Regan Shinski - 11/12/2010

Question
my car is being financed by county financial and i'm behind
two car notes and last Thursday i called them and told them
i will have the total amount by the 15 of this month and the
lady i talked to said it was okay and never mentioned that
if i didn't have the money before that, my car was going to
get repossessed.on the 11th about 12:33 am a tow truck
repossessed my car and i'm only 6 payments away from paying
it off. can you please give me advice in what i should do in
this case?

Answer
Hi Dora:

I'm sorry you are in this position.  I'm afraid you have little options.  You cannot amend a written contract (your purchase agreement) with an oral agreement.  So unless you have a new written agreement, they probably legally repossessed the vehicle.  You MAY have a case for deceptive collection practices.  However, this is really unlikely and usually applies to third party collection offices.  You have stated your conversation was with the original creditor, so this likely does not apply.  You also would have to prove this conversation, most likely through a legal recording.

Your only other option is if they illegally repossessed the vehicle.  Again, this is not likely but you may want to read the original contract with a fine-toothed-comb to be sure.  You may also want to check your state's repossession laws to make sure it was physically processed legally.

Honestly, all of these are limited possibilities but you should still check it out.

Your options now - assuming a legal repo - is to go through the process to get your vehicle back.  This will cost you a significant amount of money but may be worth it if the car has equity.

Good luck, I wish I had better news or better options for you.

Regan

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