Bought a car from a buy here pay here and moved...?

Question

I bought a car from a buy here pay here dealer in Knoxville Tennessee and was given permission by the owner to move out of state with the car after making about 6 months worth of payments. I have had the car for about a year and a half now and got a call from some repo company last week saying they were coming to get my car. I had missed 1 (bi weekly) payment. I owe about 7 more months on the car and thought to seek a repo for 1 missed payment was just crazy. The repo caller said they now owned the contract and I did not get permission from them to leave the state. (keep in mind I left a year ago and have never heard a thing from these people). I told them I would make up the payment and they responed by saying they wanted the FULL payoff NOW of 3300.00 or they would call in the car stolen and I would go to jail. What should I do?

Answer 1

The Repo guy is full of it and trying to scare you, if it was true he would have come to your door with a patrolman or a constable. Did YOU get anything in writing, if not then you dealer sold a paper loss and pocketed the cash. There should be at least a change of address notice placed with the dealer that you have a copy of and all of the other payments. You might want to put in a preemptive strike with local enforcement by calling them a telling them you are getting harassing calls. They may have the contract but have not filed the civil papers necessary to take possession of your car and are trying to bluff you into it.

You have to come up with paperwork that matches your story but local cops will tend to blow repo companies with that kind of story out of the water.

Answer 2

Now you know how they REALLY make money off of you.

Read your contract fully.  You might be out of luck. You might be lucky.

Good Luck....