Why do wrongful repossessions occur and what you can about them?

Most of us rely on our vehicles to get us around, whether it may be from home to school, from work to the store or anywhere else we need to go. Many of us couldn’t fathom not having ready access to our automobiles.

We all have likely heard what happens if we miss a car payment, though. Your car can be repossessed.

There are cases in which a car owner makes timely payments, maintains insurance on the vehicle and does everything right, yet their call still gets picked up and taken away. If this has either happened to you or someone you know, you may be wondering why this occurred.

More often than not, a wrongful repossession of someone’s car takes place for one of three different reasons.

One of the most common situations in which this occurs is if the “repo man” is trying to remain so incognito or to operate so fast the he or she neglects to verify the serial number of your car against the one he or she is supposed to be picking up. If the “repo person” doesn’t check, he or she may end up towing away a vehicle that looks eerily similar to yours, but belongs to someone else.

Other reasons wrongful repossessions happen is because of computer glitches or clerical errors.

One of the common administrative errors is a buyer or debtor changing car insurance companies and either not receiving or not updating the records. If, to your lender, it looks like you don’t have insurance, then they’ll likely rush to recover your vehicle to avoid being held liable if your do crash your car.

As for the technical glitch that may result in losing your vehicle, it has to do with the payment system having a bug or otherwise malfunctioning. You may be added to a report of non-payers that qualifies you to have your car repossessed.

If one of these or some other type of negligence occurred resulting in your car being taken away, you’ll likely want to consult with a Vadnais Heights wrongful repossession attorney. In doing so, he or she can advise you of how to go about removing the event from your credit report and having your car returned.

Source: CarsDirect, “What to do if your car is repossessed by mistake,” Amy Fortune, accessed May 04, 2018

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