Has anyone ever had a vehicle repossessed?

Agree -- HH you really should pick up phone and talk to the credit union. tell them the circumstances and see what they will work out. They want that van less than you do. I bet they work something out for you.

 

I don't want the piece of shit. I just don't want the $6g tagged onto it. Hell, I could get a pretty nice 2000s sedan for that chunk of change.

Good advice, though. I'm currently playing phone tag with the credit union. But I've left messages, so she knows I want to go back to the table.

And yes, I hated bankruptcy for the same reasons: I always believed you make your bed, you lie in it. But I've worked too damn long with nothing good coming from it, and when the surgeries began adding up, there was nobody to give me a damn break. So yeah, I took advantage of bankruptcy. But I hated it and felt like the world's biggest failure while going through it.

 

That's really a grossly misleading claim, I have come to find out.

What it means is that medical bills "contribute" to bankruptcy. Because they are often the tipping point, they get the lion's share of the blame for being the "cause."

A 2005 study showed that medical debts accounted for only 12 percent to 13 percent of the total debts among American bankruptcy filers who cited medical debt as one of their reasons for bankruptcy.

A typical case is the following: Joe Six Pack is living beyond his means. Doesn't save anything. He's got lots of debt, but he's OK for now because he's able to make the minimum payments and avoid serious financial trouble.

Then he gets hit with a monster medical bill.

And he likely will file for bankruptcy. And statistics will cite "medical bills" as a cause.

But if he had been financially smart from the start, he could have avoided bankruptcy.

It does a real disservice to the much-smaller percentage of people to whom medical bills did cause their bankruptcy.

 

Well, Harley Six Pack was a journalist making doo-squatly, and Mrs. Six Pack was a school teacher making a little more than doo.

Everything was manageable (I mean, we qualified for the loan, for chrissakes!) and we had saved a down payment, so when the old family truckster bit the dust, we saw a chance to upgrade.

Then came the esophegal surgery. Then the spinal-fusion surgery. Then the gall bladder. Then they had to go back and sew me up because I busted a seam and my guts were oozing out.

Then the teaching job went south.

Shit happens. Someone told me to deal with it, and bankruptcy was my only option to deal with it. So I did.

 

Someone making 30K a year, has no debt other than rent or a mortgage isn't ever going to be able to budget for a 100k in medical debt. Never.

 

And they fall into the small percentage of people whose bankruptcy was caused by medical bills.

Most who file for bk have several other debts (which typically make up 87-88% of their debt).

 

How do you even get 100k in medical debt? No insurance? I had my kidney removed and did cancer treatments. I think the costs for the year were around 2k. Not a back-breaking event. Of, course I have good insurance and make it a point of never going for the minimum insurance.

And where was the savings? How much do you save? If you are not saving 10-20 percent of each paycheck you are living outside of your means.

 

Not everyone has insurance. Not everyone can get it. Some people have very shitty insurance. Those to groups combined make up about 60+ million of us. There was a whole year's discussion on this.

 

Here's my question - Won't you be stuck with either 1) the van and lots of debt or 2) no vehicle at all and lots of debt? Unless you have a lot of cash on hand, or the $500 to $2,000 to buy a new car, I have no idea what bank or credit union would lend you anything to get anything.

And while I realize that everything financially in your world sucks right now, you never know how quickly things can change. (Or, how quickly you can switch from journalism to PR and suddenly be making a decent wage, and want something like a house or car loan.) If you can work with the people and make some kind of payment a month - any kind of payment - do it, since you have no idea what you might want or need to use your credit for in the future. Heck, where I am, even apartment buildings and private landlords want credit reports now.

 

While you are waiting to get a meeting scheduled with the credit union, send them a check for something, anything. If you have to raid couch cushions for $10, do it as often as you can. You've got to establish a good faith pattern here. And you've also got to do what you can to clean up the van and sell it yourself. Whatever you sell it for is almost certainly more than the credit union will get by wholesaling it.

 

Sending them a check without a new deal is a horrible idea. Any time you make any payment the statute of limitations period for them to be able to legally collect on the debt starts anew. It is no benefit for you to pay them unless you can make a deal that will get rid of the whole thing for an amount certain and agreeable to you.

 

I believe this is his second car/ex's former vehicle. He had said it's just sitting somewhere and he's driving a small car.

maybe I read it wrong, though.