Is zero down possible?

[debtmonster]

For anyone reading be careful with this though. There are some places which require a big down payment for no other reason than they know there is a good chance you are not going to be able to honor the agreement and they will be able to keep your down payment AND repo the car. Then they earn your down payment as profit and can sell the car the vehicle to someone else.

Be especially careful of any of these places that want weekly payments. Weekly payments = more potential for late fees and a faster opportunity to repo the vehicle.

If you go to a big place to do this I would check out places like ripoffreport.com for complaints. For example Yes/Ugly duckling/ or whatever they are called today. You won't believe how many complaints there are on them.

I strongly suggest buying a vehicle on the private market for cash. Even a clunker. Get a friend or relative who is mechanically inclined to help check it out before you buy.

That Ripoffreport.com site is excellent. I think a lot of people are doing Denial of Service attacks on that site because it hurts their business giving out the truth. That site is SUPER slow a lot of the time.

I remember trading a car with $4,000 equity. I lost my job a month after doing it and could not find another job. I ended up losing all that money only to have the new car repo'd. Those people made a free $4,000.

This was back in the DOT COM crash when I could not find another I.T. job to save my life.

[teacher]

What you are referring to is pretty much the business plan for any "buy here/ pay here" car lot. What I am referring to is real financing through a bank. Apples and oranges. You are 100% correct about the buy here/pay here places.

For anyone reading be careful with this though. There are some places which require a big down payment for no other reason than they know there is a good chance you are not going to be able to honor the agreement and they will be able to keep your down payment AND repo the car. Then they earn your down payment as profit and can sell the car the vehicle to someone else.

Be especially careful of any of these places that want weekly payments. Weekly payments = more potential for late fees and a faster opportunity to repo the vehicle.

If you go to a big place to do this I would check out places like ripoffreport.com for complaints. For example Yes/Ugly duckling/ or whatever they are called today. You won't believe how many complaints there are on them.

I strongly suggest buying a vehicle on the private market for cash. Even a clunker. Get a friend or relative who is mechanically inclined to help check it out before you buy.

[hereforinfo]

Many people exaggerate their incomes to get loans. That would stop it.

Or maybe if they stated an income, they could look at the bank statements and say that you didn't earn that income for very long.

Are you saying that's what you did?

Sure, many people lie about their income on loan applications. Many people also steal, litter, and drive drunk. It's still ILLEGAL and you can be in serious trouble if caught. Perhaps that's why they don't bother to check sometimes, they the threat of being caught is enough to dissuade most people. Plus it's a secure asset, so if you don't pay they take it back and come after you for the deficiency.

[hereforinfo]

I guess a few billion more will need to be lost. Or maybe the banks break even. We paid enough interest up front that when they sell the car, they lose almost nothing so they really don't care.

I doubt that. You said the bmw is a 2007 and you quit paying on it in January, so you only made how many payments? You also said it's worth WAY less than you owe, so I am sure if you add up all the payments it won't equal the difference. Plus they've lost the interest and payments they would have earned on the money had they not loaned it to you.

[debtmonster]

Are you saying that's what you did?

Sure, many people lie about their income on loan applications. Many people also steal, litter, and drive drunk. It's still ILLEGAL and you can be in serious trouble if caught. Perhaps that's why they don't bother to check sometimes, they the threat of being caught is enough to dissuade most people. Plus it's a secure asset, so if you don't pay they take it back and come after you for the deficiency.

No. I have never lied on any loan application for any cars I have ever bought in my life. Whatever I was earning at the time, I put down. But it is SO EASY to lie about those things. I could have put any number and who would have known? Instead of putting that I made $50k, I could have put $80k. I just don't like it that they take my word as gold. The banks are too trusting. If it were me, I would want to see bank statements and some kind of proof. Notice that all of the tough banks out there (the ones that didn't take risky loans) are all doing okay right now.

[debtmonster]

I doubt that. You said the bmw is a 2007 and you quit paying on it in January, so you only made how many payments? You also said it's worth WAY less than you owe, so I am sure if you add up all the payments it won't equal the difference. Plus they've lost the interest and payments they would have earned on the money had they not loaned it to you.

I paid on it for over a year or so. I bought it in mid 2007 and paid on it until January 2009. February 2009 the payment was due and I stopped then. I was never late or missed a payment until the bankruptcy attorney told me to stop paying on everything. This is probably why nobody showed up at my 341.

If you run my credit report, you see things like this showing late history:

1111111111111999999
111111111111111111111111111999999

None of my accounts look like this:

11111211111211113111131111999999

I either make all of the payments perfectly or I stop completely... like a flat line at the end.

[hereforinfo]

You bought a car that was as much as your yearly salary and you blame the bank?

[debtmonster]

You bought a car that was as much as your yearly salary and you blame the bank?

I bought a car that was between 1/2 and 1/3rd of our income at the time which is what a LOT of people do. What I was doing was not out of the norm. Circumstances changed a year after we bought it. My wife's mother passed away and we ended up moving to be near her and it caused a big mess.

So don't sit there and make judgments on people that you don't know in person and don't know their personal circumstances. All this time while my wife's mother was dying, I was in the hospital racking up a $40,000 dollar medical bill.

[hereforinfo]

I bought a car that was between 1/2 and 1/3rd of our income at the time which is what a LOT of people do. What I was doing was not out of the norm. Circumstances changed a year after we bought it. My wife's mother passed away and we ended up moving to be near her and it caused a big mess.

So don't sit there and make judgments on people that you don't know in person and don't know their personal circumstances. All this time while my wife's mother was dying, I was in the hospital racking up a $40,000 dollar medical bill.

And you still have no medical insurance? Yet you eat out at Carabbas regularly and your wife gets her nails done every week?

You are the one who stated that your income was $50k/year at the time, and the bmw was $45k-ish. That's more like 90%. If you mean your payment in relation to your monthly income, then 1/2 to 1/3 is ridiculously too high and is no better. Besides, it's not how much you make that determines what you can afford, it's how much you make versus what your total debt and expenses are. Surely with $315k in debt spanning several years and multiple repo'd vehicles you aren't blaming your mother in law's health for your financial troubles?

[debtmonster]

And you still have no medical insurance? Yet you eat out at Carabbas regularly and your wife gets her nails done every week?

You are the one who stated that your income was $50k/year at the time, and the bmw was $45k-ish. That's more like 90%. If you mean your payment in relation to your monthly income, then 1/2 to 1/3 is ridiculously too high and is no better. Besides, it's not how much you make that determines what you can afford, it's how much you make versus what your total debt and expenses are. Surely with $315k in debt spanning several years and multiple repo'd vehicles you aren't blaming your mother in law's health for your financial troubles?

When I bought the BMW, we were making almost $9,000/mo. I lost my health insurance in late 2007. I was in the hospital without insurance in 2008. My wife gets her nails done every 3-4 weeks. Maybe you go out with trailer park skanks that have nasty nails, that's totally up to you.

Do the percentages. What's the difference of a person with a $2,000/mo. income paying $400/mo. on their car or us making $9,000/mo. and paying $740? This is the same crap as me saying to the people in California or in the northeast for them paying $2,000-2,500 for their rent or mortgage and then get warnings for being banned all because my personal opinion that it's insane.

Maybe I bought the BMW for a REASON. Did you ever think of that? Did you every think that it was my dream for a lifetime to go out and buy one? NO, IT WASN'T. I had another SUV that kept breaking down over and over and over and it was brand spanking new. I had many co-workers who drove BMW's and after talking to many of them, I decided to buy one because they never had a single problem. So I bought my BMW and it hasn't given us a single problem whatsoever in 35,000 miles, unlike the GM we had that I tried to get a lemon law thing over it and was denied. So I gave it back as a repo several months after paying the BMW because I got sick and tired of making 3 car payments and 1 payment on a lemon.

This is the issue of "You get what you pay for." I did not want to buy another Dodge or Chevrolet. It's the same reason I'd rather have a Mac instead of a Dell. I have both and the Mac cost more money but has no problems unlike the Windows machines that cause me grief every single day. Owning items that give you less problems sometimes cost you more money. It's something you have to live with. Maybe you had a car that had no problems. Good for you. I didn't. And I got tired of it. I didn't want an SUV, but because we kept traveling with tons of suitcases and 2 dogs, we needed the space.

Once again, you were not there in person to experience all of the problems I was putting up with. It just happened to get worse after being in the hospital and having a very important person in our lives die, which you don't seem to give a rat's ass about.

If I were single, I would not be in this position. I would be living cheap and driving a Geo Metro and calling it a day.

I get warnings when I judge people. It's time for you to get warnings for judging me. It's only fair.

[hereforinfo]

You are full of contradictions. You said in another post that your income peaked at $90k/year. Now you're saying $108k. You also said IN THIS POST that you made $50k/year when you bought the bmw and that's what you put on your application. Not to mention, you have told us ad nauseum that you have business expenses and self employment taxes that further reduce that income. Yeah, you get what you pay for but if you can't pay for it you'll be riding a bike.

I am not judging you, just pointing out the facts that you keep distorting and trying to make sense of your discrepancies. This is all relevant in reply to your statements that the bank is at fault for your inability to pay them back.

I happen to love my trailer park nails. I especially love them when they're tapping the keys on my calculator, adding up all that money I've saved over the years by choosing to pay my bills and buy food instead of going to the nail salon.

[debtmonster]

You are full of contradictions. You said in another post that your income peaked at $90k/year. Now you're saying $108k. You also said IN THIS POST that you made $50k/year when you bought the bmw and that's what you put on your application. Not to mention, you have told us ad nauseum that you have business expenses and self employment taxes that further reduce that income. Yeah, you get what you pay for but if you can't pay for it you'll be riding a bike.

I am not judging you, just pointing out the facts that you keep distorting and trying to make sense of your discrepancies. This is all relevant in reply to your statements that the bank is at fault for your inability to pay them back.

I happen to love my trailer park nails. I especially love them when they're tapping the keys on my calculator, adding up all that money I've saved over the years by choosing to pay my bills and buy food instead of going to the nail salon.

I am on commission, plus I had a salary, plus my wife worked. We had 3 incomes.

I no longer have that salary and am relying totally on the home business income which now grosses more than $53,000/yr. I remember in December making about $9,200 or so. I made almost $7600 with the home business and my wife made $1600-1800 or something close to that.

The stuff I post is not contradictions, they are "estimations". There's a difference. Not everything has to be to the penny. It's all approximate.

I think when I bought the BMW, I had to fax over 6 months of bank statements to qualify, plus I put $3,000 cash down.

[lovebirds]

I happen to love my trailer park nails. I especially love them when they're tapping the keys on my calculator, adding up all that money I've saved over the years by choosing to pay my bills and buy food instead of going to the nail salon.

Fake nails are out of style anyway.

[debtmonster]

Fake nails are out of style anyway.

My wife's nails look perfect. No Lee's Press-on nails here. She goes to those places here where the Vietnamese chicks to them. There's usually a line of people waiting to get them done. So much for them being out of style. They will never go out. This is MIAMI. Latin women like to look nice here.

[lovebirds]

My wife's nails look perfect. No Lee's Press-on nails here. She goes to those places here where the Vietnamese chicks to them. There's usually a line of people waiting to get them done. So much for them being out of style. They will never go out. This is MIAMI. Latin women like to look nice here.

Sorry...my nails look perfectly fine. I've never worn fake nails and have seen what happens when you stop wearing fake nails. Fungus, yellow nails, and deformity of nail beds. That is why there's a line. Women start with false nails and cannot stop. I am not trying to be judgmental but that is the truth.