Car repo

It sounds odd to me that a company would charge off an auto loan without repossessing the car. If they sold the loan to another company then I would think that new company would have full rights to repossess the car.

Sometimes when there is a rather small balance on an auto loan, they will just write it off instead of repo'ing it. It costs alot of money to repo. The creditor MAY w/o if they basically got the full amount of the loan, and the rest is due to interest, late fees, etc. (This may happen if there were deferred payments, etc.)

You won't get the title tho, until it is resolved.

What was the balance that was written off?

Pretty much what desperately said.
A couple other reasons could be A) if they think the car is worthless and won't resell for anywhere near what you owe; or B) maybe they did try to repo but can't find the car to actually get it.

I have many customers that end up owing lots of late fees they never paid, and refuse to pay. Those we just chargeoff and hold the title -- 90% of the time the customer ends up wanting to sell/trade-in the car later, and will need to pay the account off for us to release the title.

DC - are you the OC or the CA? What happens, as the OP mentioned, if the charged off account was sold to a CA? Who do you negotiate/pay off the account to?

I work for a finance company, so we'd be an OC. We don't ever sell our accounts or send them to a CA.

If the account was sold, then the OC would generally hand over the title to whomever bought it. At that point, you'd have to negotiate with that company to release the lien.

Thanks for the info!

This info was really helpful.

I have a 01 Honda Accord that has been in default since Feb 08. The finance co. continued to call me (at work) up until July 08 when I left on maternity leave. They do not have my current home address, only my work address. They eventually found out I was on maternity leave and have not recieved anymore msg's on my work phone. The body of the car is not in good condition (dents, dings, scratches, etc.) I cant figure out for the life of me why cant they locate the car other than my work address. My physical address has not been changed thru the DMV but the registration comes to my current address. Does anyone know why they havent been able to find it since the DMV has my address.

Also, if it could be they know they cant sell it for nearly as much as I owe on it (I believe somewhere around $7k including late fee's and interest) and they just decide to charge it off can I still pay the registration and continue to drive it?

I think this is definitely going to come back to haunt you...they're going to find the car eventually. As far as them not being able to sell the car for as much as you owe, that isn't the reason they haven't knocked on your door. When they do find it & sell it at auction, you're still going to owe the difference of what you owe now (including interest, late fees, tow charges when they repo, etc.) minus what they sold it for. The loan is still valid. They can take your car no matter where you are ~ at the store, etc. Repo companies are like private investigators...they'll get their information somehow. You haven't been found yet but that doesn't mean it won't happen...and it can happen at a very inconvenient time.

It's important to update your information with the DMV. If you get pulled over, it could cause more of a headache if you have information that doesn't match.

I had surgery, my boyfriend was diagnosed with cancer and passed all in a 8 month period. I got behind on my payments. and other stuff, my friend, trying to help me recover, paid the past due car payment and late fees, and wrote the remaining checks to pay off the car each month from my account which was only 2 more after she made the lump sum payment. Honda wont give me the Title, they are charging me an Investigative fee and repo fees because they were looking for the car at my job while i was out sick. The car was never repo'ed. The charges add up to over 2 full car payments.

so, will the dmv register a car that has been chargedoff?