Auto loan charged off .. Not the owner of the car .. What should I do next?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone, i'm new here. Bare with me this story is kind of long but i'll break it up as best as I can.

Backstory: I'm 22 years old and I had a 745 credit score. Always paid my credit card bills on time, everything was great. I wanted to get a car. Could not get a loan(was always told I did not have enough credit lines). Gracefully, financed through CapOne for 21k for any dealership. Life was great!

Fast forward: February 2017, I ended going to an auto company and getting a car financed for 14k through one of CapOne's recommened dealerships. Amazing day. The car test drove perfect, but broke down once I left the lot with it. The dealer said they forgot to change the alternator (which apparently they were working on) in this Certified Pre-owned vehicle. They gave me a loaner, came back a couple days later picked up the car, and went on.

Intitially contacted CapOne, they said they would investigate and they said they have a "warranty deal" with their dealerships. Okay, perfect. I took the car back for servicing atleast 3 times, I have paperwork and timestamps for proof. I was sure that I was sold a lemon. At this point, I took the car back to the dealership and went to look for a new one. I

couldn't get the new one financed that I wanted, but I got the dealership to buy the original car back from me. Apparently they never sent CapOne back their money, and The dealer called me and told me I was still in full ownership of the car, which is impossible, we signed new agreements!

Today: I have a chargeoff for about 15k on my credit, and I didn't possess the vehicle. I was being given the run around by the dealership, which allowed me to become deliquent in payments for a car I never drove more than a couple hundred miles. Since the debt has been charged off, but the dealership had purchased the vehicle from me, what steps should I take to get this CapOne loan cleared and also remove this chargeoff from my credit?

 Thank you for bearing with me. i know it was pretty long but this extremely dropped my credit. I would like to have my beautiful 745 again.

[Anonymous]

Wow. What a predicament. Once I bought a lemon. They dealership gave me a hard time about taking it back. In MI they have lemon laws. So, i filed a complaint. After that, the dealership was happy to take their car back. But, i wouldn't give it to them until I received my full down payment. By the time they decided to give me my money, several months had passed. I did not pay any of the monthly payments. However, due to the lemon laws in my state, they had to remove the entire transaction from my credit report. Maybe you are past this stage. But, if have the documentation showing the dealership bought the car back from you, I would obtain a consumer protection attorney. Did the dealership resale the car?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your response. One thing I didn't get is a copy of documents from when they repurchased the car from me, but my mom and dad were both there and it was acutally the finance manange who intiated the repurchase. I don't know if they resold the car yet, but I can try to find out if they did. 

The attorney might be the best option. i kept great documentation of every time I had to return the vehicle to the dealership, including the first day it broke down. But are there any other things you might suggest? I was going to try to dispute CapOne to try to open an investigation. 

[Anonymous]

What State are you in and how long ago did this start

[Anonymous]

Started in January and i’m in Georgia

[Anonymous]

I reread your original post and you may need some real help here

The head scratchers that I'm not comfortable with are you said the dealer bought a car from you but

You have zero paperwork on the transaction
What did they supposedly pay for the car, when buying from you
What was YOUR pay-off, at that time from YOUR finance company?
How can you, prove ANY numbers what so ever?

You are gonna have to show they basically STOLE your car w/o paying you directly or sending a check to your finance company

Now in fairness, you've got to be MORE in command of how financing, liens, titling and pay off work

The dealership just doesn't SEND BACK 'their' 💰
you must have known that initial check has long since been cashed....
So of course your 'sale' would be a brand new transaction requiring paperwork a sales price and a pay off

So much time has gone by at this point, you need to get crystal clear what's what ...was/is this car titled to you, who owns it now, the DMV has a record
Somebody is committing FRAUD and you need to jump on it

Bottom line when a finance company paya/sends a check to someone on your behalf it's your as on the line Cap-1 paid for a car FOR you, period!

At this point you're saying the dealer STOLE your car...make them deal with it, clean it up

[fltireguy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for your response. One thing I didn't get is a copy of documents from when they repurchased the car from me, but my mom and dad were both there and it was acutally the finance manange who intiated the repurchase. I don't know if they resold the car yet, but I can try to find out if they did. 

The attorney might be the best option. i kept great documentation of every time I had to return the vehicle to the dealership, including the first day it broke down. But are there any other things you might suggest? I was going to try to dispute CapOne to try to open an investigation. 

---

Remember, you were probably NOT covered by any type of lemon law, as this apparently was a used car purchase. Georgia does not have any type of lemon law for used cars at all

HOW could you possibly do this with no paperwork at all - you can't possibly be serious!

what type of an agreement did you sign with the dealer?  Where is the car now?  

And why did you Contact CapOne? They didn't sell you the car!  A car loan is different than a credit card transaction, you don't have recourse thru the finance company

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I reread your original post and you may need some real help here

The head scratchers that I'm not comfortable with are you said the dealer bought a car from you but

You have zero paperwork on the transaction
What did they supposedly pay for the car, when buying from you
What was YOUR pay-off, at that time from YOUR finance company?
How can you, prove ANY numbers what so ever?

You are gonna have to show they basically STOLE your car w/o paying you directly or sending a check to your finance company

Now in fairness, you've got to be MORE in command of how financing, liens, titling and pay off work

The dealership just doesn't SEND BACK 'their' 💰
you must have known that initial check has long since been cashed....
So of course your 'sale' would be a brand new transaction requiring paperwork a sales price and a pay off

So much time has gone by at this point, you need to get crystal clear what's what ...was/is this car titled to you, who owns it now, the DMV has a record
Somebody is committing FRAUD and you need to jump on it

Bottom line when a finance company paya/sends a check to someone on your behalf it's your as on the line Cap-1 paid for a car FOR you, period!

At this point you're saying the dealer STOLE your car...make them deal with it, clean it up

---

Basically when I went back to the dealership, the dealer agreed for me to get a new car. In the agreement I chose a different car, signed new terms that the dealer would buy the car back and I would get the new vehicle but they told me the vehicle I chose was older and I would have to choose a different vehicle, but at that point I had already signed the papers intiating the buy-back. Which is why i'm saying that they purchased the vehicle back from me. 

[Anonymous]

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@fltireguy wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for your response. One thing I didn't get is a copy of documents from when they repurchased the car from me, but my mom and dad were both there and it was acutally the finance manange who intiated the repurchase. I don't know if they resold the car yet, but I can try to find out if they did. 

The attorney might be the best option. i kept great documentation of every time I had to return the vehicle to the dealership, including the first day it broke down. But are there any other things you might suggest? I was going to try to dispute CapOne to try to open an investigation. 

---

Remember, you were probably NOT covered by any type of lemon law, as this apparently was a used car purchase. Georgia does not have any type of lemon law for used cars at all

HOW could you possibly do this with no paperwork at all - you can't possibly be serious!

what type of an agreement did you sign with the dealer?  Where is the car now?  

And why did you Contact CapOne? They didn't sell you the car!  A car loan is different than a credit card transaction, you don't have recourse thru the finance company

---

Understood. When I was first having issues with the car, CapOne agreed to open an investigation when I explained the situation about the car being a "lemon" (for lack of better words) because they had some sort of protection that covers issues like this, but this isn't the matter at hand. 

The dealership now has the car, I signed a new with the finance manager(not the dealer who sold me the vehicle, the actual finance manager) at the dealership to buy-back the vehicle. The dealership never sent CapOne back their money.

[Anonymous]

I don't know GA law but in my state the dealership CANNOT have an open title ie it must be out of the former owners name .  To do this they would pay off the Cap 1 lien.  Our state regulatory board has taken down several used car lots and dealerships over the open title issue.  Huge $15K or more fines. If you are old enough to recall Friendly Ford in Decatur GA 30 years ago they played title games with  Bank of America on over 200 cars.  It is used in finace classes as a prime fraud case now lesson.