auto loan charge off

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/28/2007 - 22:50
Forums

I have some charge offs showing in my credit report. What might be my options now?

Hi Maria,

Welcome to the creditmagic forums.

Since the charge off is already there in your credit report I think the harm has been already done to your credit profile. But the amount of harm really depends on how long the debt was. I am also looking forward to know what you are currently planning to do.

However the best option available to you is to settle the charge offs for 50% or less. Once the charge off is paid it will show as a “paid charge off” which is better. You should always get a written confirmation prior to the settlement to ensure that the status of your report gets updated accordingly.

If you have any more queries please let us know.

Regards,
Richard

Mon, 08/21/2006 - 03:17 Permalink
maria (not verified)

Thanks for your prompt response. But can you please explain in what way a "paid" charge off is better?

Mon, 08/21/2006 - 03:31 Permalink

Hi,

However the best option available to you is to settle the charge offs for 50% or less. Once the charge off is paid it will show as a “paid charge off” which is better.

I totally agree with this. It should help you improve your credit profile and most importantly save you from the hands of harassing collectors. Also if you are planning to shop for new credit like applying for mortgage, or buy a car, you will get an extra edge. If it was a plain charge off, it would have given the impression to the lender that you have chosen not to pay your dues. This will make the lender rethink. But if it is a paid charge off the lender will think that you should have some hard times in the past but once that you have overcame, you have opted to clear your old debts.

This I think from my personal experience is better and should benefit you.

~Carol

Mon, 08/21/2006 - 03:41 Permalink

My friend had signed on a car for her daughter and ended up in extreme financial trouble. My friend asked the bank to remove her name as co-signer, due to her having to file a ch.13. They said no problem. Her daughter quit making pmts on it, and it was listed on the mom's credit as a charge off. It is also on the daughter as a charge off. The car is still in their posession but has been sitting up for a year. The girl still owed 4800 on it (1995 Nissan Sentra) the car is only worth about 200-300. Can they sell it legally? They had already paid 4800 on it.

Mon, 03/31/2008 - 05:05 Permalink

i would think that they CANNOT sell the car legally. Whoever they have the car financed through, STILL owns the car. I mean, whomever still has the 'Pink Slip.' I can't believe it's still in your possession. I have seen car dealers, like the ones that state "Buy here, Pay here" ( because they don't check your credit) repossess cars right after the FIRST payment is missed. It shouldn't be on Mom's CR, either, since she took her name off the loan.

Tue, 04/01/2008 - 02:31 Permalink

Does your friend have any paper mentioning that her daughter had been removed from her account whatsoever?

Tue, 04/01/2008 - 11:25 Permalink
michelle666 (not verified)

Can someone get their car repossessed during an auto inspection?

I know of someone who needs to get their car inspected, but doesn't know if by them being late on payments, loan charged off (after 6 months), and still has the auto, will not loose the auto upon inspection.

Is their a particular database that they need to go through that shows that they owe on a loan and are in the repossession process? Will a tow truck and police come up at the inspection store and get the car or what?

FYI...They are good people that just had a hard year, and will try to get things settled with the bank.

Thanks to all for your information!

Fri, 06/27/2008 - 21:57 Permalink

My car was charged off without being reposessed but now i can't apply for a loan or anything because the amount that was charged off was a very large amount. I thought i was lucky since i didn't have to make any more payments, but the truth is it is hurting my credit badly!

Fri, 06/27/2008 - 23:16 Permalink

I highly doubt that anyone at an emissions center will call your loan providor to arrange the reposession of your car. They flat out have nothing to gain from their efforts. As far as getting back on track with the loan *which is a great idea* I would call your loan providor and see if they even own the loan anymore. Then i would see about working out a new payment arrangement with them. I am sure it all has to do with how long the loan has been in default and the amount of the loan. You may find yourself in a position to pay off the loan with a settlement for much less than your balance.

Sat, 06/28/2008 - 02:32 Permalink

Hi ahitche
Since your account has been charged off, it will stay in your credit report for seven years from the date of first missed payment. Even if you pay off the debt, it will show in your report as "paid charge off" and will affect your credit score.

Mon, 06/30/2008 - 11:25 Permalink

That is the part that I don't get, if you pay it off and hold up your end of the bargain, they should have to put a positive spin on it for your efforts by either deleting or upgrading it to a positive status. I paid off three and they are still in the negative colum, they say paid, but they still reflect negatively on my report. I think this is crap. It made no difference if I paid them off or not.

Mon, 06/30/2008 - 23:31 Permalink

hi goodnatured
whenever you have a charge off in your credit report, it will never go out of the report for seven years form the date of first missed payment whether you pay it or not. If you pay it off, it will be shown as "paid charge off" and will still remain in the negative column indicating that you have been charged off once in the past seven years. This will show your potentiality as a borrower to the creditors. It is always better to pay it off because charge off does not mean that your are not liable for your charged off account and the creditors can still sue you for the payment till the time the SOL in your state runs out.

Tue, 07/01/2008 - 09:46 Permalink
Big Papa (not verified)

I made my last payment almost one year ago and have since moved. The finance company does not know where my truck is, but I my ex-wife got a letter today that says the loan has been charged-off. I still dont have a clear picture of weather they can still repo my truck, or are they just going to come after the money and ignore my truck?

I have read quit a few, like questions and all of the awnsers have been either rambling or just people that dont know what they are talking about and ask more questions.

Bottom line, can anyone offer me a clear direct awnser to my question, or provide me with the federal codes related to this subject so that I can find the awnser myself?

Thanks Big Papa.

I've had my truck inspected, tags re-newed and even towed twice for parking violations and I still have it! Dont believe in fairy tales told by people that have no first hand experience on the subject.

Mon, 07/28/2008 - 06:42 Permalink

I would say that if they were going to repo it they would have done it by now, I do believe that at this point they are going to come after the money for the truck. Where is the title to the truck? If it is with the finance company that you owe the money to then they would still have a lein on the truck right?

If they do decide to repo and they sell the truck for less than what you owe, you will be held accountable for the balance. If you want to keep the truck, you should contact them and try to catch the payments up.

Tue, 07/29/2008 - 00:32 Permalink
Nate (not verified)

I have a car loan that is charged off but the car isnt repossed also.

This is what I know,

Got Loan 6/2002, I became delinquient 2/2004. They tried to reposses the car in 6/2004 at my brothers house and he ran them off his property. Since then no attempt to repossess the car has taken place. I changed adress's and didnt forward my mail and stopped recieving any bills on this loan. I hired lexington law service to try to get it removed from my credit report an 10/2007 and that completly failed (waste of money). But they started sending me a bill in the mail from a collection agency to my new adress. I checked my credit report during this time and all 3 agencies show the oringinal lender loan Pay Status as collection/charged off. Even though a different named collection agency is trying to collect the debt they have not appeared on my credit report.

I got some time with a lawyer that specializes in consumer law. He said that most loans of this type have a 4 year statute of limitations as far collecting the debt using the court system from the last date of delinquincy. He has asked me to wait until 2/2009 the 4 year aniversary of my delinquincy. He then plans on approaching the collections agency with an offer of paying about 1/3 of the final balance on the loan in return they have to remove it from my credit report completly and give me the title to the car. Honestly this whole thing has been a real pain for me and my family and I almost wish the car had been repossed originally. 4 years is a long time much less 7. I have defintly learned a valuable lesson from all this. This car loan is the only thing stopping me from buying a house and getting out of this apartment.... I hope it helps.

Tue, 07/29/2008 - 18:04 Permalink

unless you get a pfd agreement the negative mark from the car will be on your CR for 7 years

Wed, 07/30/2008 - 20:26 Permalink

Hi Nate
Since your loan has been listed in your credit report as charged off, as far as I know, even if your SOL expires and even if you pay off the debt now, the listing will show up in your report for seven years from the date of your delinquency. All that you can do is to ask your OC to change the status of your listing to "paid as agreed" after you pay it off.

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 09:31 Permalink
Nate (not verified)

Yea I assumed the lawyer was going to try to get a pfd agreement. Its why I was going to hire him to handle it so It could all be in writing.

Anthony - I honestly dont know if we will be sucessful or not. After going through the credit repair process I realized how complicated all this can be and why credit repair services exist and so many are stealing peoples money. I also see how arbitrary the credit system is and why it probably shouldnt exist in its current form at all.

But with that said, I did manage to get 3 medical collections removed completly from my credit report by just telling them over the phone i never recieved the bill and that I wanted to pay it now. They all just imediatly said "sure," I didnt have to prove anything. Which makes me realize how shady collections agencys are and willing to bend the rules to get some money out of all the bad paper they buy for next to nothing.

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 13:21 Permalink

Nate, welcome to the confusing world of credit. I like how you got the med bills removed.

Thu, 07/31/2008 - 14:21 Permalink

I can see how you would be frustrated with this, so do you still have the vehicle? I thought that they were bent on repoing once you fell delinquent because the sooner they get it, the least amount of wear and tear and then leading to more money they would get out of it during resale.

Thank you for sharing your experience here, it will help those who are getting into this situation from the beginning, maybe somebody will make a different decision once they read your post here. I hope that you can get it all cleared up soon so that you can move on with your life. Please update the forum if at all possible, and again, thanks for sharing your experience.

Mon, 08/04/2008 - 14:18 Permalink

I think the whole credit business can be frustrating at times. I wonder too if you still have the vehicle. I see your point GN about the resale.

Tue, 08/05/2008 - 03:34 Permalink

Hi Nate
As far as I know, even if you pay your debt in full, the negative mark of charge off is very difficult to be removed from your report. It can only be removed by the original creditor and not by any collection agency. All that you can do is to ask your creditor or CA to change the status in your report from "charge off" to "paid as agreed". But get this in writing before you pay off the dues.

Tue, 08/05/2008 - 09:23 Permalink

I agree with Anthony on this point. Pay for deletion agreement can be made with the CA for all negative listing except charge off account. In case of charge off listing, even if you pay off the debt, it will remain for seven years in your report and lower your credit score. So it is always better to prevent charge off listing as far as possible before it actually gets listed in your report. For this you should always contact your original creditor as soon as you find yourself falling behind your loan repayment.

Wed, 08/06/2008 - 09:43 Permalink

I will agree with that, get the pay for delete in the beginning, cause once you pay it off, you will not get any cooperation from them.

Thu, 08/07/2008 - 02:04 Permalink

Isn't that funny? They harass you to pay and when you cooperate with them they turn around and won't return the favor.

Fri, 08/08/2008 - 01:48 Permalink
Nate (not verified)

Well after reading anthony and justins post.

I decided to contact the lender directly by phone. They told me to contact a collection agency "Western Mass Credit Corp." The lady at the original lender also told me that the original lender still had the title for the car and that if I satisfied the loan with Western Mass Credit that they would send me the title after 2 weeks.

So I decided to contact Western Mass and got a Steve Lowe who said that they had an agreement with my original lender to collect .60 cent on the dollar, but that sometimes they would agree to .50 cents on the dollar if he requested it.

He seemed pretty straight forward except that he said they could keep the loan on my credit report forever by suing. Which I assumed is his way to scare people into paying. My Question is should I try to get them to agree to less. After 4 years you would think they would be ready to settle and I would assume they would make a good offer imediatly. But maybe they will go lower. Any recomendations. At .50 cents on the dollar it will leave me upside down on the car about $4000 conservatily. Which is not pocket change for me, but I could pay it off by in 6 months to a Year after I sold the car. Any thoughts?

Wed, 08/13/2008 - 19:01 Permalink
Nate (not verified)

Wester Mass Sent Me the Following Agreement which I edited the personal info from.

ON BEHALF OF OUR CLIENT, CITIZENS BANK, WE HAVE AGREED TO ACEPT A SETTLEMENT OF $9,884.30 AGAINST A BALANCE OF $19,768.60. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR PAYMENT IN THE FORM OF A CREDIT CARD PAYABLE TO "WMCC". BE SURE TO NOTE OUR FILE NUMBER ON THE DRAFT AND FORWARD YOUR PAYMENT VIA CREDIT CARD.

YOUR PAYMENT MUST BE RECIEVED NO LATER THAN 8/13/2008

ONCE THE PAYMENT OF $9,884.30 IS POSTED, YOUR ACOUNT WILL BE MARKED "SETTLED FOR LESS THEN THE FULL BALANCE" THE CREDITOR ALSO AGREES TO RELEASE ALL LEINS AND TITLES.

I guess my only question is I should be able to get wording better then "settled for less then the full balance," shouldnt I?

Wed, 08/13/2008 - 19:19 Permalink

I would ask for the pay for delete. It doesn't sound like that is .50 cents on the dollar. Didn't you say it would leave you to pay $4000 or did I read wrong. Also how are you planning to pay this amount up front? Will they not offer you a repayment plan?

Thu, 08/14/2008 - 13:26 Permalink

That is a lot of money to ask for upfront, however collectors don't care how you come up with the money, they just want it. Good luck, hope they will come up with a reasonable plan for you to repay this money. keep us updated on your progress.

Fri, 08/15/2008 - 10:11 Permalink

In this case I wonder what would happen if someone didn't have the full amount up front. These days people are lucky to even have a savings account much leass with that kind of balance.

Fri, 08/15/2008 - 11:23 Permalink

Hi Nate
Instead of "settled for less than the full balance" ask the CA to change the listing to "paid as agreed". Moreover, since the account is not a charged off account, and you are paying around $9,884.3 which is a large amount, you can ask the CA for a Pay for deletion agreement first. Try to convince him for a PFD and if he agrees get it in writing. However, if he is not at all willing for PFD then only ask him to change the status to "paid as agreed".

Fri, 08/15/2008 - 13:31 Permalink

It will stay on the negative side of your credit report regardless of what you do, I paid off three accounts and they still reflect negatively, they all say paid in full but it DID NOT raise my score at all. Had I known, I would have hesitated to pay them off so quickly. Make sure that you get what you want in writing because you will NOT get any cooperation after they get their money.

Fri, 08/15/2008 - 23:06 Permalink

Why GN do you think it doesn't raise your score? I believe that it doesn't but you think it would make a fairly big impact by paying off old debt. It wouldn't show a negative balance so I would have thought it wold have done a little something anyway.

Sat, 08/16/2008 - 14:15 Permalink
NATE (not verified)

I settled for 8000$ on almost 20,000$ I also got the Title to the car which is probably worth in this market $6000-$7000. I couldnt get them to budge on the "settle for less than full balance," but they agreed not to reset the date on it. So hopefully if everything goes as they said and put in writing it will fall off my report in 3 years and I will be done with it. It hasnt hit my credit report yet so I can't speak to its effects on my score yet. It is the only negative on my report though and I'm in the 680's right now, with it like it is. I think it might actually go down, but now atleast it doesnt show as an open balance. Which was stopping a mortage from moving forward. But with the current mortage market I dont know if that iwll even matter.

Wed, 09/10/2008 - 19:51 Permalink

You do have a really good credit score. have you tried other mortgage lenders? WSe recenlty went for a vehicle loan and was turned down about a year ago. I really needed the vehicle and decided t go to the bank we did our regular business with and got the loan. The first bank had turned us down due to an old credit card bill and it was the only bad mark on the whole report. In any case I am glad you got it worked out with the vehicle. If you are turned down for the mortgage maybe you should look in to different lenders. Do not let them all pull your credit report bacause it will lower your score. maybe you could go online and get a copy of your report and take it with you when shopping around. You can ask them what the chances are with the report as it is in getting a mortgage loan.

Thu, 09/11/2008 - 17:10 Permalink

great advice there fireyone, you are exactly right, mortgage lenders are a good alternatives, you can also visit the mortgage forum at the top of the page and present your mortgage question there. keep us updated.

Sat, 09/13/2008 - 00:40 Permalink

I just think it is really wise to shop around,especially when someone has a great credit score,as does the poster.

Sat, 09/13/2008 - 13:54 Permalink

I agree with fireyone, you have a good score, take advantage of the offers that should be flowing your way.

Sat, 09/13/2008 - 23:36 Permalink

Have you went to your local bank to see what type of loan rate you can get there?

Sun, 09/14/2008 - 18:01 Permalink
Meow (not verified)

The lender collection call me and told me my car will be charge off at the end of the month, the car is in a auto shop so they don't have it. Do I still try to pay? can it still be repo?

Wed, 10/01/2008 - 01:43 Permalink

Hi Meow
"Charge off" is actually a negative listing on your credit report which cannot be generally removed before the seven year time frame once it gets listed. An account is marked as "charge off" when the creditor considers the debt as a bad debt. Normally, a credit account is marked as "charged off" after six months have passed from the date you first missed your payment. A charge off listing in your credit report can lower your score by as much as 100 points and so you should always avoid this type of listings. For this you should negotiate directly with the creditor to find out how much he is willing to settle down for not charging off your account. You can always set up a repayment plan with the creditor to pay off the debt.

Wed, 10/01/2008 - 09:09 Permalink

Hi Meow
Before they charge off your car loan, you should contact them and pay off the debt as soon as possible by coming to a repayment agreement with the creditor. This is because if your debt is charged off, it does not mean that you do not have to repay the loan. In fact, even after the account is charged off, the creditor can sue you to the court and bring judgment against you to garnish wages till till the time the SOL expires. Moreover, once SOL gets listed, it cannot be removed even after you pay it off in full. So it is always better to prevent charge off, rather than paying off a charge off account.

Wed, 10/01/2008 - 09:41 Permalink

Justin is correct here. If you can prevent it from even going on your credit report do so...It is a long 7 and a half years once it gets on there. This is the time period negatives are listed on your report.

Fri, 10/03/2008 - 01:23 Permalink
craig t (not verified)

how long can i stay with a car that has been charged off?

Wed, 02/04/2009 - 04:59 Permalink
ishmael (not verified)

can i legally sell my truck even though it has been charged off?

Tue, 03/03/2009 - 02:42 Permalink

No, you cannot legally sell off your car because you have still not made the total payment towards the auto loan and so the car is still not legally yours. To avoid repossession of your vehicle, all you can do is to contact your creditor and set up a repayment plan and pay it off. This is because charge-off does not mean that the creditor has written-off your debt and the creditor can repossess the car any time.

Tue, 03/03/2009 - 07:17 Permalink