Limits and Liens and Loans

Total Black: $906.89
Total Red: $241,059.05

Oh my!  Oh my!  Oh my!  I went looking for a jeep today.  Not sure how this will work out.

I’ve been checking Craigslist down here for a few weeks.  One person has had an ad up for a Jeep over on St. Thomas.  I emailed last week when my mother was still here.  No response yet.  He wanted $6,000 for a 2000 Jeep Wrangler.  Then just this morning another ad went up for a 1997 Jeep for $5,500.  I’m no car aficionado.  But five hundred-dollar difference between a car that’s three years older tells me something doesn’t add up.  I’ve also been checking the newspapers as well.  One ad had a 2003 Jeep Wrangler going for $10,000.

A few people mentioned that rental agencies here are having fleet sales currently.  I spotted one just outside of downtown Christiansted so I stopped there this morning.  A used Jeep shouldn’t be too bad, right?  Wrong.  They had one Jeep, a white one, and they wanted $12,500 for it—as is, no warranty.  Next I went to a car dealership here in St. Croix.  I figured they might have some used cars to sell me.  They sure did.  Well, not exactly.  I got shown all new cars.

Once the representative walked me back inside, I figured I’d let them run my credit and find out where things stand.  Turns out, I might be eligible for a 2009 Jeep Wrangler—brand new, but they’d give me a used rate as they want to get it off the lot—for about $3,000 down and a $500 a month payment for sixty months.  Well, maybe.  If we go with a local bank on St. Croix, they will want me to pay off, or pay the arrears, on the Raymour & Flanagan charge account that was charged off and sent to a collections agency.  Another instance of daily calls from some recorded computerized voice named Chelsea, calling from Enhanced Recovery Corporation.  So part of me wouldn’t be too upset about seeing that debt go.  But to do that, I’d have to come up with $3,000 down-payment, then the roughly $6,000 for that charge account.  That’s $9,000 down, effectively.  If we went with a bank in the States, I was told, I wouldn’t have to worry about that charged-off account, but instead I’d probably have to an auto loan at 18%.

I told them I didn’t know if it was a good idea, so the dealer walked me outside to see the only used Jeep they had: some banged up 2004 item that would run me $8,000.  The fender over the driver-side tire was cracked.  The cushions over the backseat seemed to be torn out.  And for $8,000 I’d only get an oil change and a check of the engine to make sure its in good-working condition.  No other repairs.  I left feeling trapped, overwhelmed, and sick to my stomach.  I stopped in McDonald’s to grab lunch before going to the court to put in a few hours of work, but had to leave after about five minutes in line because the smell of the food and my anxiety eliminated my appetite.  I had called my mother to talk this all through.  Much of it wasn’t making sense.

Assume I went with the Jeep in the newspaper: I’d have to come up with $10,000 up front and I’d be purchasing it from an individual.  No warranties there.  Not in the bring-it-back-and-we’ll-fix-it sense.  Even the 1997 Jeep for $5,500—that’s a lot to come up with.  Coupled with the $7,100 I need for the IRS, and we’re talking $17,100 in one scenario.  It seems to make more sense to buy a brand new Jeep, for $3,000 down, then make monthly payments.  In the end, $500 a month times twelve months comes out to $6,000.  Plus the $3,000 down equates to nearly the same as the 2003 Jeep for $10,000.  And instead it’s brand new and presumably easier to sell a 2009 Jeep in 2011 than it would be to sell a twice-used (or more) 2003 Jeep in 2011.

Of course, much of the stress here is because of my credit score.  The lien filed last year by New York State showed up.  Even though it’s been paid, it still shows, of course.  And the charge-off I mentioned above.  I can’t wait to start getting some money rolling in again so I can start cleaning all this up.

And, as if the day, wasn’t bad enough.  Almost in a somewhat medicinal sense, I logged on to my bank account to check my balances—and to look at the $1,000 I had cleared on my Upromise master card with Bank of America.  And what did I find?  Bank of America dropped my credit limit.  Instead of $1,000 available credit I now had $150!  INSANE!  This is exactly the sort of crazy behaviors the CARD Act was intended to curtail.  Banks can’t use your failing and misgivings on one negative account to wallop you on theirs.  But they can use it to drop the amount of available credit they extend you.

I was LIVID!  This is tantamount to stealing money from me.  And they did the exact same thing to me last year when I attempted to front-load my card and charge the tax debt and also get miles for it, noted back in The Phone Call.  I can’t believe they did it again.  Last time I called and complained and kept complaining until they raised my limit up again by like $300.  Today I tried the same, got some silly little lackey who told me—when I referenced the CARD Act—that the bank had a duty to its shareholders, and the government, to be responsible lenders.  I almost spat at the telephone.  Oh, now they jump on that bandwagon and use their prior mistakes and financial irresponsibilities and throw it back in our faces?!  When I heard that I immediately requested to speak with a manger but only to be told he was in a meeting and would call me back.  A meeting?  On a Saturday afternoon?

Still no return call.  This is my own damn fault for not following through on my pledge, way back in Fifth Day of Accounting, to follow Suze Orman in her Back-to-Cash Movement.  Had I not sent mounds of money to the credit card, it wouldn’t have been flagged in their system, and they may not have reevaluated my account.  But instead, since I sent a lot of money their way—it showed up in the system as an aberration, causing them to review the entire account.  And then they walloped me.

What kind of incentive is that?  I send you money, you bring down my credit limit.  Yeah, I’m not going to do that again.  It’s like being punished.  Almost like a prepayment penalty.  Had I steadily plodded along with my 29% APR, making my payments, I probably would have gone unnoticed.  And would have had about $1,000 more in cash.

I can’t wait for today to end.