I knew ahead of time that buying from a buy-here-pay-here would get me an overpriced car that probably wasn't the best, but when you are in a bad financial situation, sometimes you do what you have to. I saw a car online in February that I liked with a low down payment and called about it. Lenny Williams said I could come in and look at it. When I got there, he told me the car I had wanted to see wasn't available... (I found out later it was probably because of the noise the car was making)... But that I could look at a better car. The other car he showed me was newer, but the sunroof didn't work and the downpayment was higher. I decided to keep looking. Then I saw the car I had wanted for sale again at NAS. My boyfriend and I test drove it and the back window didn't work and there was a strange tap that I didn't recognize. Lenny and the finance guy told us it was just one of the belt pulleys and that it wouldn't cause a problem. It didn't sound ominous or like an engine knock, so we took a leap of faith and got the car (yes I am was naive and too trusting). I didn't have money to have anything looked at and the car ran fine.
In May, my son needed a car too, so since I hadn't had issues with NAS and they had low downpayments, I got him a car there too. I told Lenny we wanted to trade his car for something with a 399 to 599 downpayment and we didn't know until we were signing the paperwork that the downpayment on the car we were getting was $1000... Funny that is what they were giving him as a tradein on his old car. A few weeks later I had an unforeseen financial issue and I called to ask if I could make my payments for both cars on the Wednesday after the Friday and Saturday they were due. (this would have been 5 and 4 days late respectively) They told me I could on the car I had the longest JUST THIS ONE TIME, but that if I wanted to do that on the car we had just bought, I would have to bring it to them and let them hold it until I made the next payment... Couldn't do that, so I made the agreement for Wednesday on one of the payments and wrote a check hoping it wouldn't bounce for the other one. Even though they said I could pay the other payment on Wednesday, they started leaving messages with people from Saturday through Monday threatening to pick it up. When I was able to answer one of the calls, I reminded them what they had told me and either Diane or Tammy said the other one hadn't told her. I knew from this that there was no talking to these people or discussing, so I just didn't after that except in writing.
Things went okay until December. That odd tap? Well it was the timing chain (inside the motor) gradually disintegrating and falling apart. My mechanic said it would take $5-7K to fix (it was a *) and that it had bent the rods. I wrote to NAS asking if they could help with getting it fixed by deferring payments of fixing it and letting me make payments on the repair. Rather than answer me, they picked it up from my mechanic and filed a lawsuit against me. Funny, the belt pulley on the other car did go out and that makes a completely different sound than what the BMW was making... But there's MORE!!!
From April through September the time I received money changed, so I always made my payments on the Wednesday following the Saturday they were due. I didn't have a phone for a while so they stalked and harassed the people on my reference list instead of me. They always accepted the payments at that time. Then one Wednesday in October I got up and the car had been drug out of my driveway the night before. Four days late. I called and asked Ira how much it would cost to get it back and he said he wasn't willing to renew the contract. I'm sure they'll sue me for that one too. Any other used car place I've dealt with other than maybe JD Byrider will work with you if you need to be late and won't go to such lengths to make your life a living hell. Not 30 or 60 or 90 days late, but 4.
I asked my attorney what to say when the court sent me a request for a response on the * thinking I could fight it. He told me all the judge would care about was if the debt was really signed for by me... Not that they had told us that the noise was nothing or that I had asked them for assistance. On the second car, it is ridiculous that they took the car at 4 days late... The contract doesn't even specify a late charge until it is 7 days late and it wouldn't even be reported as late on my credit until after 30 days. When I went to get my belongings out of the second car, they had it at their repair shop across the street. I asked the guy there if there was anything I could do to get it back and told him what Ira had said. He was very nice and apologetic and said, "You know, I hear that a lot. If he said no, he won't change his mind."
You are asking for a world of trouble if you buy from these people. They take advantage of people who don't have much money, charge them more in payments than they would have had to pay at a legitimate dealership, and then repossess at a few days late and resell the cars.
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