Ugly Duckling AKA Drive Time ripoff, shisty, ripoff liars Wilmington California
About 4 years ago I moved to California. I went out there with my sister to see if I could start a new life, I was 20 years old so tie downs or strings attached (young and dumb). I lived in LA for about 3 months with no car and it was horrible.
After trying a toyota dealership and being rejected, since I had NO credit, my sister and I went to Ugly Duckling. I found a car that I thought was nice and that would be reliable...That joke was on me! So I signed a contract for a 1993 Nissan Sentra for $8,000 with a 18% interest rate.
The first month I had the car something in the clutch went out and the breaks went completely out. So I could not shift or stop...That was a fun ride in downtown LA. I took it back to ugly duckling they fixed the problem...yeah right.
About 2 weeks later....ooops it happens again. So I am thinking to my self, I must not know how to drive a stick anymore, even though every car I have ever owned has been manual transmission. OH, but what about the brakes, well I guess I dont know how to use those properly either....
So I take the car back a second time and they fixed it again with a nice $300 charge. A couple days later the car won't even start. So I call ugly duckling and tell them that they can have their piece of #$%& back. They wait about 3 weeks and finally come to get it. I would have taken it to the dealership happily, but remind you that it wouldn't start.
So this week, I go to a ford dealership to try to get a new car, I am thinking my credit is clean, it has been 4 years since ugly duckling and since it is the only thing one my credit and it is voluntary then it wont be so bad. My credit shows that it was an involuntary reposession and that it happend 1 year ago.
Now I can not do anything since Ugly Duckling has such a bad mark on my credit.
TAKE MY ADVISE: If you are planning on buying a car - Do it anywhere else, but Ugly Duckling!!
Lisa
Kansas City, Missouri
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Mike
Radford,Virginia,
U.S.A.
They *aren't* allowed to do that, Allan.
#3Consumer Comment
Sun, July 04, 2004
The "age" of bad credit is based on the Date of Last Activity, which would be the date of the repo.
Even if you did have a receipt showing a car was repo'd in 2000, that would not prove that you didn't have another car repo'd in 2004. The burden of proof is always on the creditors. After four years, it is often possible to file disputes and have the entire affair removed from your credit reports.
Having the account entirely removed is the best way to improve your credit. Having the date reported properly as 2000, rather than 2004, will help considerably if you can't get it removed. But just getting it marked "paid, chargeoff" or "paid, repo" is still as bad as unpaid. Paying old debts is, for practical purposes, a waste of money.
Alan
DALLAS,Texas,
U.S.A.
reappearing repos
#3Consumer Suggestion
Sat, July 03, 2004
When a reposession has not been paid, sometimes a lender will turn it into a "charge-off". They can renew this charge-off every few months to make it appear as if it is a current debt that was just recently done.
I have not figured out a way to do this. I had a car reposessed in July 2000. The bank showed it as a charge-off and was listed in October of 2000. I have recently been car shopping and the "charge-off" is showing as April of 2004. I have not financed a car since the repo. Four years later they are still renewing the charge-off.
The only way to get it marked paid is to pay the amount.
I am thinking that if you have the car reposessed maybe it would be a good idea to get a receipt that shows that they took possession of the car on such-and-such a date. Then when you are ready to try again, you can have that receipt saying, this repo is NOT from last month, it's from x years ago. It may help, it may not. I have no paperwork on my old car loan, so I'm stuck with whatever the credit report says, which says I just dumped my car. I've owned 20 or so cash cars since then.