Imagine that you hear the sound of a truck outside, and you look out to see your car being repossessed from the street in front of your house. You can’t believe it. You’ve heard about repossessions on television, but you never thought it would happen to you. As far as you know, you’re not even behind on your car payments.
The unfortunate reality is that wrongful repossessions do happen. Below are a few reasons why this may be occurring.
Paperwork errors
In some cases, it could be a paperwork mistake – or, in 2023, a computer glitch – that means the repo company believes they have the right car, but they actually don’t. The lender intended to repossess an entirely different vehicle.
Miscommunication errors
Additionally, there are numerous moving parts and different people who are involved in this process. The actual lender may know which vehicle needs to be repossessed, but there has been a communication error so that the individuals who are physically taking possession of the car aren’t aware that they’re making a mistake.
Insurance changes
In some cases, a repossession will happen if there is no insurance on the car. But this creates an issue when someone changes insurance carriers. If there are communication errors or paperwork mistakes, as noted above, the lender may see this as a loss of insurance when that’s not really what happened.
This can be a very frustrating situation to find yourself in, but these examples of potential reasons show you that it may be more of an error than anything else. Just be sure you know what legal steps you need to take to get your car back.