How Not to Buy Your Own Leased Car

All through my bankruptcy last year, I was careful not to include Hunting*** bank in it because I didn’t want to lose my beautiful car. It’d almost became an obsession, not because it was an object, but because it was the first car I ever took possession of brand new off the showroom floor. Now I want to keep it because I know for a fact how well it was kept up and maintained.

Click on the photos to enlarge them...

One year after the bankruptcy was final, I went to Hunting*** Bank to see about buying my beloved car. In the whole five years that I had it, I never missed a monthly payment, nor was I late with one or missed an insurance payment. The attack that left me disabled was on November 4th 2004. From that point on I was on workman’s comp. In June of 2005 I started getting Social Security Disability for my destroyed left leg.

I pointed out that I’ve had the exact same income for nearly four years and had the track record to prove that I could keep up the payments despite the hardships. The lease payments were $299.83 and Allstate robbed me at $722 every six months because Hunting*** bank insisted that I be insured to the hilt and then some to the tune of $300,000 for anything that could possibly happen to the car.

When I first got it, I didn’t care-I could afford it easily. Around 2005 when I was declared totally disabled, I realized how much I’d need to start stretching every dollar, and raised my deductible to $2000 to lower the payments by a measly $16 a month. There was still a small ding on my driverside wheelwell where a lady backed into it at a grocery store, then gave me false information. Since I had planned to own it after the lease, I wasn't all that concerned. Now however when I turn in the car, they might charge me thousands to fix it.

With my bankruptcy last year, it'd be impossible to get a used car loan.
I was turned down by my bank-National C*** the moment they heard the word “bankruptcy”.
I was turned down by Hunting*** Bank, whom I was leasing it from.
Lease turn-in date is July 17th-last payment due June 17th.

June 3rd, of this year, I went into the dealership where I got the car. Laid out the situation up front concerning bankruptcy and how I'd never missed a payment nor been late with one.

The head salesman told me it might take some doing, but he'd give it a try. I filled out all kinds of loan papers of which I have copies, laid out the whole situation regarding being on Workman's comp, and Social Security disability, figuring they'd quickly find out if I didn't tell them up front. He had me fill out income statements, He got some kind of approval over the phone and called Hunting*** Bank to get the buy-down figure on the car. He was amazed that I only had 40,000 miles on it. More papers were signed and shuffled.

Workman's comp didn't pay a bill in 2006, and kept insisting they had, this went on my credit report, which gave both MasterCard and Visa an excuse to charge me 33.9% interest and impossible to meet minimum payments. Thus I filed successfully for bankruptcy in March of 2007 and it was final on July 2nd... all of which was explained clearly to the salesman I dealt with at the dealership.

Half an hour later he congratulated me, shook my hand and gave me even more papers to sign. In the midst of it, he suddenly remembered that he wanted me to sign an income statement leaving the amount blank. He takes a $1,000 cash down payment from me, removed my license plates from my car, issues me temporary tags and installed them, has me sign odometer reading and lease turn-in sheets, had me sign a bunch of "As is" and "We owe" papers.

I was a little worried, because it seemed that since I was the 2nd owner the 7-year 70,000 would be invalid. Never got a straight answer on that one, however I was told that since “technically” I was the first co-owner so to speak, that it shouldn’t be a problem.

He informed me that I need not make the final lease payment to Hunting***, and issued me papers that stated that my payments to Chrysler Financial would be $292 a month for five years. The first payment would be due by July 4th 2008.

He congratulated me on being the 1st/2nd owner of my car, and sent me on my way in my car arriving in a lessee and leaving an owner.

He said the ownership documents and payment book, so I can get my plates would be coming soon. The salesman wanted me to by gap insurance for the car incase anything happened to it, but I couldn't afford it. He took a moment (never leaving the room, nor using the phone) and said he negotiated my finance rate down a point for being a repeat customer and used that to buy the gap insurance for me.

The first year of my car lease I paid $299.83 for five years to the tune of about $18,000 (paydown was $11.000+). The new agreement papers I have, say $292.40 over a period of five years... which means all in all I'd wind up paying $36,000 for a $29,500 car. But I didn't mind, I love that car, and would never be able to get another of any kind with my finances.

I went home a happy man… for a change.

Out of the blue on the afternoon of June 17th (the day of my final lease payment to Hunting*** my car dealership called me to say that Chrysler changed their minds and that my loan had been canceled. I had 15 minutes to rush to Hunting*** Bank to make the final lease payment before it was late. It took them 15 minutes to find it because it wasn't on the computer-it'd been canceled/bought out? by Chrysler.

I went to the dealership and politely and calmly asked what the heck was going on. I even offered to put an additional $500 down if it'd help. I was asked to wait a few days to see what happens, while they tried asking a few more places. The salesman had Monday the 22nd off and asked me to come in the following Tuesday.

Little did I know that each and every time a credit application was made and rejected, my credit score gets even lower? Meanwhile I had no idea who owned my car or if the insurance is valid on it (yes if by Hunting***-no if by Chrysler). I was really hopeful for this deal to go through because I'd never be able to get another car with the credit I have, and would be out of transportation unless I couldn’t figure a successful way out of this situation.

I'm still being treated for posttraumatic stress at OSU, and severe depression because of the major things that keep going wrong in my life on a regular and frequent basis without warning, making it nearly impossible for me to talk myself into leaving my apartment… for a week

I spent the whole time sleeping. With severe depression, it’s an almost physical thing to want to sleep all the time rather than face the world. The following Monday I gathered my wits about me and began making phone calls. I got an appointment with a lawyer with offices on the ground floor in my building. After searching the fine print, he finally found a clause in one of the loan contracts that allowed Chrysler to pull the financial rug out from under me.

My depression deepened almost to being unable to function, but I knew I couldn’t face my shrink that Wednesday if I gave up, so the next day I got even busier on the phone.

Hunting*** Bank wouldn’t approve the loan, I explained the circumstances and she transferred me to her supervisor who promptly told me the same thing. He transferred me to his supervisor. After once again explaining the circumstances she put me on hold and came back ten minutes later to ask me if I could afford $222.80 a month. I was ecstatic and took the deal immediately.

She told me the problem was that the loan (mysteriously had fallen to $10,200) was worth more than the car. It’d fallen more than half its value in five years. I asked her what the gap was, and she said $11??. I told her that the dealership still had my thousand down payment, and I’d happily put it and $500 more if it’d help. She said it’d cinch the deal.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I was put on hold for about 15 minutes.

She came back and told me that the bank’s underwriters refused my loan. I thought of walking out to my balcony and falling over it six stories. My ears were roaring and ringing and I felt like I was trapped under a waterbed mattress. Even then, tears wouldn’t come.

She said she’d like me to call a place in Alabama that might be able to help, or even arrange for an extension on my lease.

They set up a deal for me at $252 a month to purchase it, No one will lease out a car that’s five years old, then told me the same thing I’d heard all morning and afternoon. She pointed out one thing though. She told me to get my lease payment book and see what was on the last page. There was a page that said if I wanted to keep the car an additional month past the contract to use that coupon.

I have a one month reprieve, that extends the lease from July 17th to August 17th. July 23rd I go for my heart exam and then surgery for my leg.

It hurts like hell to admit this, but the thought is never far from my mind that I hope I die on the operating table.

Then I pull back what little sanity I have left and know it’s not true…

Posted half an hour after the above.. I went out to get some pain medications, only to find my car has a front driver's side tire flat. What are the odds?

My temporary tags expired las Friday.

unfuckingbelievable

Chapter: The Saga Continues...

I'm concentrating on getting this posted, but I realize I've left everyone who has read to this point dangling, so I'm posting this raw until I can overcome a few health problems and of course there'll be photos...

Thanks for your patience...

Jet

-------

Back on Monday, September 10, 2007, I was supposed to have eye surgery at Ohio State University to remove the remnants of exploded blood vessels inside of my eyes due to diabetic retinopathy, the effect of which is like having a lava lamp in both eyes. The very next day, on the 11th, I was to have corrective surgery to fix my left knee.

Instead, an EKG revealed an anomaly called a negative T wave, and all surgeries were canceled in order to have a more extensive echo EKG done. That test revealed a blood clot lodged in my heart that was starving the muscles in one of the chambers and enlarging it. I didn’t realize how serious it was until that Friday when I was rushed to the hospital with congestive heart failure. I was put on Coumadin (a blood thinner that is the main component of rat poison) in order to try to dissolve it.

Between September and December, I apparently suffered a massive “silent heart attack.” It was explained that diabetics could actually have them and not know it. On December 28, I was again rushed into heart surgery and stents were implanted in narrowed blood vessels. I was told a clot that couldn’t be operated on blocked one artery. The only choice was to stay on Coumadin and to add Plavix to my list of prescriptions.

In July of 2007 (thanks to the help of many of my friends at Blogcritics), I barely had the financial ability to file bankruptcy to get out from under $56,000 in credit card debts (because of 33.9% interest and late fees). I couldn’t afford $95.50 out of my disability checks per month for Medicare and its co-pays, nor could I afford health insurance.

I was also apparently making just over the income limit from disability and workman’s comp to qualify for Medicaid. This means I’m stuck with more than $30,000 in hospital bills with no way to pay them. Bankruptcy is out of reach for seven years. Thank god for my psychiatrist (Dr. M) at Ohio State University. That brings me up to 2008. I thought things were settling down.

Fat chance.

Some year-old business in February of 2007 came back to bite me this year. I’d received a letter from Social Security saying my disability benefits totaled $1,025 per month. This perplexed me as I was only collecting (at the time) $461 per month. I called them and they said it was because I was receiving Workman’s Comp benefits.

The pizza shop I was working for at the time, in 2004, was “privately insured” through a company I’ll call GB. Several inquiries were made to get a definitive answer about my benefits through GB - with no response. I contacted a lawyer in February 2007 to look into it. He was satisfied and found I was getting what I was supposed to be getting and that my combined benefits were actually slightly more than I would’ve gotten had I only been on disability alone, because Social Security allows you to make a little over the limit from an outside source without penalizing you. I thanked the attorney for looking into it and forgot it.

In January of 2008, something strange happened. GB sent me checks for $444.34 every two weeks, directly depositing them into my checking account. I got a check the first and third week, and for no apparent reason got one on the fourth week. I didn’t realize it until a couple of weeks later when I checked my online balance against my checkbook. By mid-February I realized I hadn’t gotten a check in over three weeks. Like a fool, I figured they were making up for the check they deposited in error.

I got an unexpected letter from the Ohio Bureau of Workman’s Comp saying my attorney had filed a grievance against GB because they never provided him with the information he needed last year to close his file on me. A week later the Ohio bureau found GB in violation of the guidelines because they’d only responded a week ago (over a year).

By the third week of February of this year, I still hadn’t gotten a check from GB and things were getting very tight, especially since I was uninsured and a month’s worth of Plavix is $157 at Wal-Mart. This brought my monthly prescriptions to $225 a month. I attempted to contact GB and finally got a hold of someone who said she was new and was unfamiliar with my case. She said she’d get back to me, but never did.

That meant I was only getting $484 a month (with the yearly increase) from Social Security to survive on until I could get some answers. Those answers would never come from GB directly. Instead I found they would only deal with my attorney, whom I hadn’t communicated with in a year. I didn’t know he actually was my attorney.

Through my psychiatrist’s inquiries, I was told in March that GB had heartlessly cut me off from my checks back in December (without bothering to tell me) because my heart condition wasn’t part of my original injury. When I pointed out that I’d gotten three checks, I was told they were deposited in error because mine was a rare case that had been authorized for direct deposit, and they hadn’t caught it until then.

Would I have to pay those checks back? Repeated calls left on assorted voicemails went unanswered. Now I’d have to go on only Social Security until I could get it straightened out and wouldn’t get my checks from them increased until they did months of paperwork.

To compound my problems, GB almost pushed me over the edge to suicide. Over the last four years, I found I wouldn’t be able to return to the life and career I loved. My eyes were failing and cutting me off from artwork and writing. My left leg was all but destroyed and I’d never be able to be active again. As these problems continuously grew, a deep depression set in that progressively got worse as my life continued to fall apart.

If you’ve never experienced a clinical depression, you’d never understand. It affects you physically as much as mentally. To combat it, I started on 20mg of Cymbalta, and then a few months later it was increased to 30 (which at the time was the maximum recommended dose), then 60, and eventually 90mg a day. On a Monday in mid-March, I went into refill the prescription only to be told that GB was re-evaluating my case and wouldn’t authorize it. I was out, and the pharmacist took pity on me and gave me a three-day supply until they could get it straightened out.

On Wednesday, they told me GB still wouldn’t authorize it. I had to go cold turkey from 90mg a day down to zero. By Saturday I was experiencing uncontrolled rages. I trashed my apartment trying to find my glasses and bellowed angrily at nothing. My sleep schedule went out the window and I’d sleep eight hours, wake for four, then grow tired and fall asleep again. I couldn’t keep track of what day it was. Killing myself to end the ordeal was never far from my thoughts as the withdrawal symptoms got worse.

Mysteriously I began spontaneously bleeding. I’d clean off the site only to discover I couldn’t find where it was coming from. My shoulders were scabbed over, as were sites on my hairline and below my knees. My doctor looked at them and within seconds told me what I’d already suspected: it was caused by nerves and tension. Within days my pillows and sheets were covered in dried blood.

The following Tuesday, I found that just as GB had cut me off without telling me, they authorized the refill without telling me - the previous Friday.

I decided I’d have to gather myself up and try to fight again. I’d failed many times before and wasn’t exactly hopeful. I contacted a nice lady at Ohio Workman’s Comp and explained the situation, and she contacted GB. Meanwhile, my shrink at OSU discovered a program called “Spenddown” that might override my ineligibility for county health assistance by presenting my tens of thousands of hospital bills and my low bank balance.

After driving all over the county, I finally found a social worker who got some results. Meanwhile Dr. M got word that GB was bowing to pressure from the Ohio BWC and would be sending me a back check of $1,544. They wouldn’t, however, authorize direct deposit anymore because of the mix-ups. I wouldn’t get a check for about 10 days.

As long as I’m on Coumadin therapy and Plavix, I can’t have surgery to repair my knee, nor can I get surgery on my eyes so I can see again. As of today, my left eye is useless, just barely able to make out light through a dark maroon haze. My left eye has exploded blood vessels hanging down over my optic nerve. If I suddenly shake my head to the right, I can see crystal clear for maybe a second or so before they fall back in front of it.

I got a letter in the mail today. GB is demanding I start vocational training in order to keep my checks coming. They assigned the same woman to me who, last year, made me put in 15 applications for work a week and turn in the records to her or not get my checks.

I’ve lived in my apartment for 20 years now, so it’s memorized, as are the routes to the store and doctors when I could drive “one-eyed.” What I didn’t realize until today is how blind I really am. I had a hospital appointment at the heart failure clinic. I knew the route from the cab, down the hall, and to the facility.

I decided to go across the street to the library to get a 1040A form to do my taxes, a route I didn’t have memorized. I couldn’t see traffic to cross the downtown street, and left when everyone else moved. On the hundred-yard trek to the front door, there are several sets of four marble steps with about twenty paces in between. After falling over the first set, I began cautiously feeling ahead of myself with my foot.

After the terrifying ordeal, the cab left me safely at home. I was overwhelmed with frustration and hopelessness, and slept for fourteen hours, waking up a few hours ago. I'm still fighting, but I've become paranoid wondering where the next blow will come to blindside me.

This is the edge of my story stretching back, now I'll go forward, which means blogs will appear backwards from the bottom up...

As I go through my cab rode logs, and journals spread all over my computer, I'll be editing in events that I've blissfully forgotten-when I do I'll "blue pencil" them in like this... stay tuned