My sister bought a car last year from one of those buy-here-pay-here places and she can no longer afford it?

Question

What is the best way to negotiate with the dealership to give the car back? She cant afford the payments anymore. To give some background: the car is a 1999, has about 120,000 miles on it and they sold it to her for around 12k, at 25% interest. She was desperate and bought it without asking any of us for help first.

is there ever a way out of those types of auto purchases? I think they report to the credit bureau. We're trying to keep her credit as clean as possible because she needs to get an apartment in the next few months. I bought my car from a Ford dealership so I dont know how those buy-here-pay-here places work. Can someone provide advice??

Answer 1

If sucking this mistake up is out of the question, you sister is just going to have to sell the car and pull the loan for the rest so the next buyer can get a title in hand.

Yes, that will mean a payment for a car that sis doesn't have, but if a bank.credit union helps out, it's a lower interest payment (not so hard with the terms she gave herself!) to deal with while building some credit over time.

There is NO way out without some blood, sweat, and tears, though!  Stupid decisions come with penalties.

Answer 2

There is nothing to negotiate, if you can't pay, give them back the car, don't make them find it,it'll just p**s them off, and you don't want those places mad, they'll mess with you.

Drop the car back off at the dealer where you bought it, you will be charged with a repo, and credit will be shot, limiting her ability to get the apartment.  If you want to keep her credit clean, then the only choice is to continue paying the car.

Answer 3

They may or may not report to credit bureaus. That's irrelevant anyway at this point. They may "help" her get into a cheaper car. If she's been paying for a year, there must be some decline in the balance. Maybe she can sell it for what she owes or close to that amount. This is going to end up bad, I can feel it.  

Answer 4

Honestly the best advise had she come to someone would have been to stay clear of those places.

I highly doubt that they will renegotiate with her, but what you can try is call the local bank, and try and take out an auto loan for the amount of the outstanding loan. She will get a much better interest rate, and then she can pay them off, and have the loan through a reputable loan agency.

She may need a co-signer, but it really would be the best way to go.  

Answer 5

AVOID these places like the plague.   They are no better than those "Check Cashing" places.  They are bandits who prey on the weak.

That being said...   Take the car back to them and plead with them to take it back with no penalty.    If they get tough offer to make payments on the difference from what they want if you give the car back.   That will lower the payments some maybe.  Of course she won't have a car but she can put money aside each week/month while she takes the bus, bums rides or borrows a friends bike to get around.    

Save $500 and buy the best car "for cash" she can off of Ebay or in a local paper.        Keep putting the monthly car payments into a savings account.    In a year she can sell the $500 beater and maybe buy a $1500 beater for "CASH" off of Craig's list or local paper.

Keep putting a car payment in the bank each month.   If car needs maintenance or repair use sparingly the emergency funds in the "next car account" at bank.    Given time and only paying cash for each car and always putting aside a monthly car payment in the bank she may some day be driving a "new car" that she paid cash for.

More people need to do this and quit paying any interest on their transportation.   Even the banks lower interest rates are outrageous but these "buy here and pay here" places are outright thieves.

Good luck to your Sister

RoyG

KC

Answer 6

they probably won't negotiate with her.  they may help her into another car that costs less, but the best advice is what was missed from the beginning.  avoid those places.

at this point, she can return the car and have shot credit for a while, or she can struggle to make those payments for as long as she can.

she could try to get a bank loan and pay them off then pay the bank at the lower interest rate, but that probably wont' happen, b/c the bank wouldnt loan 12K on a car with that mileage and age, and the dealer's that do that usually have a early pay off penalty clause in the loan to prevent that type of behavior.

Answer 7

Basically if she takes the car back her credit will be toast, no offense or anything but her credit was probably already toast if she was buying a car from a buy here pay here, just for future refence avoid buy here pay here like the plague, if she or whoever has bed credit and cant get a car loan its better to take the bus till you save up some money and just pay cash for some beater.

Anyway if she already had bad enough credit that she had to go to a buy here pay here you might as well just take the car back and tell them you cant afford it anymore. They will probably report it as a repo but at least of your nice enough to take it back they will probably help get her a cheaper car if she wants to go that route. I would check her credit with one of those credit reporting websites and if its still bad then just take it back, like jay said dont make them come get it, you dont want that.

If she has built up some better credit and she doesnt want to destroy it again than she needs to be thinking about how she can pay for the car, not how she can return it. Get a second job, stop using her cell, find a smaller place, dont go out to eat, beg for change, whatever, times are tuff suck it up figure it out, or just return it and take the hit to your credit.