Limited towed front wheels down? How bad is this going to be?

[eli_lilly]

Some of you guys must only get 3 or 4 bills. Once you start running a company and get dozens and dozens of them a month, yes, the reception of a bill is what triggers the payment process. And I hope those of you who use auto-deduction have a separate account for that, or you might have the misfortune of discovering that Wells Fargo can't remember that they already took out the $380 this month, just like they couldn't remember to send a paper invoice.

-E

 

[zstampe]

My bank calls if I'm over a week late. When we had our daughter and she was in the nicu the car payment slipped my mind and they called and followed up with me. No harm no foul. I sent them their money that day and life went on.

 

[zimdba]

My bank calls if I'm over a week late. When we had our daughter and she was in the nicu the car payment slipped my mind and they called and followed up with me. No harm no foul. I sent them their money that day and life went on.

Yeah, when you're in the NICU nothing else seems to be that important.

I started using the "billminder" feature in Quicken. Seems to help out alot as my memory starts to slip . . .

 

[03Limited]

Thanks for all the kind words. Got the wire transfer done today, and everything seemed good until I called the tow lot manager to touch base and he said Mannheim (auction guys) came and picked it up today. Since WF didn't have a hold on it, he had to let it go. I about had a stroke right then and there.

But, he saved my ass by cleaning out the few personal items I still had in there and pulling my plates before she left. Yeah, I should have done it ALL while I was there the first time, but I assumed (and was assured) they wouldn't send her to the auction lot until closer to auction day. I owe that guy a case of his favorite brew.

Everything has been sorted out that can be at this point. I don't know if Mannheim is open on Saturdays or if WF got the release pushed through before the end of the day, but there's a SLIM chance I'll get her back tomorrow. More likely Monday. Then we'll know what the true damages are.

I got the contact info for the WF collections department, and I'm hoping that I can sweet talk them into cleaning up some of the black marks this will leave on my credit. Of course they say they logged all the letters and calls they made. :rant: I'm going to request that log for starters.

You get monthy bills?
...
So. Don't get too mad at the bank. Looks like it common practice to not notify on a monthly basis.

If it were up to me, I'd do autopay push from my end on all our routine bills. But my wife is old school; she likes to get mail and write checks. Normally it works fine, and it keeps us in absolute control.

And you're right, it's common practice to not notify monthly in some fashion, but it's not normal to just stop doing so without notification.

Sorry to Hear of your troubles.. It suks and I hope you get it squared away quickly.. Its Happens ..you know your wife did not miss pmt on purpose , it was a mistake ..she needs the wheels as much as you ..Get your car back and go easy on the wife and Life will return to as normal as it is !1 Good Luck.
And Good Luck with you Bus. as well.

Thanks for the kind words. One upside is that I didn't have to ask the boss for time off to tend to this issue. She's more broken up about it than I am, but maybe that's just a female thing. We love our rigs, but in the end they are just things. Maybe I'll welcome her home by finally putting on that Daystar leveling kit that's been collecting dust in the garage.

Some of you guys must only get 3 or 4 bills. Once you start running a company and get dozens and dozens of them a month, yes, the reception of a bill is what triggers the payment process. And I hope those of you who use auto-deduction have a separate account for that, or you might have the misfortune of discovering that Wells Fargo can't remember that they already took out the $380 this month, just like they couldn't remember to send a paper invoice.

-E

+1000!!! It's not the lack of a bill that's the problem, it's that we WERE getting a bill and it just stopped. And you're so right about the autopay issue. Banks make mistakes all the time. Just today I read about a guy with a house in California that WF "foreclosed" on. They threw out all his things and bolted the door to "secure the property". Turns out he built the house himself and never had a mortgage period, let alone with WF!

My bank calls if I'm over a week late. When we had our daughter and she was in the nicu the car payment slipped my mind and they called and followed up with me. No harm no foul. I sent them their money that day and life went on.

Hope everything turned out ok with your daughter. Family's always more important than cars.



Thanks for all the kinds words. I'll update this post as the situation develops.

 

[zstampe]

!

Hope everything turned out ok with your daughter. Family's always more important than cars.



Thanks for all the kinds words. I'll update this post as the situation develops.

All is well here, that's for the concern. She's been home with us for a few months now. We couldn't be happier.

Also I hope you get your 4r back in one piece.

4 generations all together, much more important that any material things.

 

[03Limited]

All is well here, that's for the concern. She's been home with us for a few months now. We couldn't be happier.

What a little cutie. She doesn't seem too sure about 3D Bill Murray, though.

 

[OHP]

HA! Bill Fu@#ing Murray T-shirt. I love it!
KCCO

She's a cutie.

 

[zstampe]

Well since we have some chivers in here I guess I can include one more pic....ok maybe two.

To the op, sorry your thread got derailed. Everyone loves babies lol. Let us know what you find out, and if the 4runner is gone let us know what you decide to go buy.

Zach

 

[03Limited]

To the op, sorry your thread got derailed. Everyone loves babies lol. Let us know what you find out, and if the 4runner is gone let us know what you decide to go buy.

It's all good.

Got her back today, everything seems good. First thing after the lot runner pulled her up, I tried 4Lo and the center locker, and it all worked like it should. I thought I smelled a little burned clutch, but I couldn't find the source, and that doesn't make sense anyway (unless it's something REAL bad, and I think I'll just put that possibility out of my mind for now). Could have been left over BO from the guy who pulled her around. Pulled into a spot to put my plates back on and checked out the tranny fluid. Smelled good, didn't see any sparklies in it. Drives fine and shifts like it should. Only damage I saw for sure was a little ding in the paint where they slim jim'd it.

Before long, I will be getting the title in the mail and Wells Fargo can suck it. Hoping I can convince them my quick action and previous record of on-time payments are worth a little leniency when it comes to reporting this incident to the credit bureaus.

Thanks everyone for following my little drama.

 

[riceandpho]

I thought one of the news did a story about wellsfargo taking money from there customers for no apparent reason. I just think that wf is a bad. U might want to checks all fluids and grease all zerk fittings.

 

[KidVermicious]

Wow, you're far more level-headed than I am. I would have blown my stack over the repo itself, don't even mention the possible damage to the truck. Props to you for that.

You really do need to pitch Wells Fargo to the curb though. Pretty much every national bank is out to rape you, but Wells Fargo likes to use barbed wire wrapped around a 2x4 to do it. After a horrible experience with them, I went to a local credit union and haven't had any trouble in 15 years. Fvck banks, they suck.

 

[MidwestT4R]

I recognize that many people out there have been hit hard by decreasing house values so this is a somewhat limited suggestion. If you can get to a point where you actually have some equity in your house I would suggest setting up an home equity line of credit.

I used mine to buy my used 4runner and paid it off over 12 months or so. You can even take longer if you want and the interest is deductible on non home improvement related expenditures such as a car purchase. There are some limits to non home improvement related expenditures but they are high enough to cover the purchase of even a new 4runner.

This way if you reduce a payment you only hurt yourself. You will still have to pay a minimum each month but most of the HELOC's can be set up to deduct the minimum required payment each month if you forget.

Either way the money is usually far cheaper than a car loan, especially once you factor in the deductibility of the interest. You also have some flexibility in payment amounts if some unexpected financial emergency pops up. You just have to make sure you stick to a payment plan and pay off the debt to yourself. Because a HELOC is a nice tool, but you don't really want to bury yourself by turning it into a piggy bank for fun stuff.

 

[me_rikey]

Unfortunately the bank has no responsibility to inform the debtor of late/ missing payments. They should, but they don't have too. I would just talk to Wells Fargo and see if they have indeed knocked your credit yet. When I worked in the banking industry I learned a couple of things.. Wells Fargo sucks and even when a car is repo'ed, sometimes the creditor has not reported you to a credit agency yet. Communication is key.

 

[DC runner]

I recognize that many people out there have been hit hard by decreasing house values so this is a somewhat limited suggestion. If you can get to a point where you actually have some equity in your house I would suggest setting up an home equity line of credit.

I used mine to buy my used 4runner and paid it off over 12 months or so. You can even take longer if you want and the interest is deductible on non home improvement related expenditures such as a car purchase. There are some limits to non home improvement related expenditures but they are high enough to cover the purchase of even a new 4runner.

This way if you reduce a payment you only hurt yourself. You will still have to pay a minimum each month but most of the HELOC's can be set up to deduct the minimum required payment each month if you forget.

Either way the money is usually far cheaper than a car loan, especially once you factor in the deductibility of the interest. You also have some flexibility in payment amounts if some unexpected financial emergency pops up. You just have to make sure you stick to a payment plan and pay off the debt to yourself. Because a HELOC is a nice tool, but you don't really want to bury yourself by turning it into a piggy bank for fun stuff.

1. Understand that I am glad it went well for you, but never do this. This is a very, very, very, very bad idea and it is one of the reasons the housing market collapsed.

While it is true your interest is lower, it is because if you mess up, they TAKE YOUR HOUSE. If you f'up a car, they take your car. Which would you rather lose in a bad situation?

It was this constant re-leveraging of debt that lead to the housing and economic collapse we are still recovering from.

If you are in a situation where you cannot afford to buy a car cash, and you need to take a loan out, then it means you are not in a financial situation where you should be risking your house. I am glad you were able to pay yours down in a year, it also probably means, you could have waited or paid cash.

Understand that leveraging debt is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. Until your mortgage is totally paid off, that is all it is. You don't own that house if you owe even 1 dollar to a bank. Leveraging that for a car? Re****ed and unsafe.

If you are worried that the drop in a housing market might impact your equity, then that means you are so far deep in the debt woods that leveraging what equity you do own to buy a shiny toy is utterly undefendable.

I am sorry. I spend my life, daily, working with constituents and their stories (the really sad ones) all start out like this. Then something happens. An accident or a job ends. A family member dies. Something tragic and for one reason or the other, they can't make the payments.

It would be really stupid to lose your house over a 10k car, and trust me, you can. Don't let anyone fool you. A HELOC is nothing more than a new, 2nd tier debt on your house that enables a bank or debt owner to take it.

-End of Rant-

 

[eli_lilly]

While it is true your interest is lower, it is because if you mess up, they TAKE YOUR HOUSE.

What DC Runner said...

-E

 

[me_rikey]

1. Understand that I am glad it went well for you, but never do this. This is a very, very, very, very bad idea and it is one of the reasons the housing market collapsed.

While it is true your interest is lower, it is because if you mess up, they TAKE YOUR HOUSE. If you f'up a car, they take your car. Which would you rather lose in a bad situation?

It was this constant re-leveraging of debt that lead to the housing and economic collapse we are still recovering from.

If you are in a situation where you cannot afford to buy a car cash, and you need to take a loan out, then it means you are not in a financial situation where you should be risking your house. I am glad you were able to pay yours down in a year, it also probably means, you could have waited or paid cash.

Understand that leveraging debt is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. Until your mortgage is totally paid off, that is all it is. You don't own that house if you owe even 1 dollar to a bank. Leveraging that for a car? Re****ed and unsafe.

If you are worried that the drop in a housing market might impact your equity, then that means you are so far deep in the debt woods that leveraging what equity you do own to buy a shiny toy is utterly undefendable.

I am sorry. I spend my life, daily, working with constituents and their stories (the really sad ones) all start out like this. Then something happens. An accident or a job ends. A family member dies. Something tragic and for one reason or the other, they can't make the payments.

It would be really stupid to lose your house over a 10k car, and trust me, you can. Don't let anyone fool you. A HELOC is nothing more than a new, 2nd tier debt on your house that enables a bank or debt owner to take it.

-End of Rant-

Could not of been said much better. Being a former big bank worker bee with degrees in financial services, management, and economics, do not take 2nd and 3rds out on your house. Sucking all the equity out of your house, and even being over-extended (think sub-prime 120% loans that were used and then were packaged as MBS' and sold to big insurance and pension companies) helped get us in the economic crapper were in.

 

[MidwestT4R]

Agreed.

Note my last sentence. Don't do this if you can't stick to paying it off or make it your piggy bank for fun.

BUT, I should have probably emphasized more, as you all did, that you want to avoid using the HELOC for larger, longer term loans. You can quickly get into trouble given the uncertainty of our job market. Nor should you leverage all the equity in your house for personal loans.

I had the cash for the truck. But in my case the cost of money for 12 months after deducting the interest was low enough that I didn't want to take liquid cash out of the bank and pay. The amount I tapped was also a very small fraction of the available HELOC.

Your cautions are good ones but in the right circumstance (lot's of equity) with discipline (and the backup cash to pay it off, if necessary) a HELOC can be an effective short term, inexpensive source of capital. I should have been clearer in my comments.

 

[Texas_4Runner]

If you can get to a point where you actually have some equity in your house I would suggest setting up an home equity line of credit.

Terrible idea.

Go to a credit union. They are awesome. I got 2.49% on a 6 year old 4Runner.