Let me see if I’ve got this. Three years ago, which would have been, say, late 2008, you bought a USED 2008 Scion TC (2009’s would be on sale
then) for apparently more than $20,000 because that’s how much you borrowed from the bank. Today a brand new Scion TC, a 2012, costs $18,575. Of
course, you can add a ton of options, including a $2K navigation system, but basically the car costs less today new than you paid for a used one three
years ago. What’s up with that? How did you manage to over pay for the car so drastically in the first place?
Next you say you got “some BS interest rate.” Today used car loans are in the mid 4% range. Hard to say what yours was. Apparently you don’t
even know. You say you had “good credit” so there’s no reason for you to have paid a very high rate. Looking at historical charts, the average
loan rate in 2008 was about 5%
Here's a
chart of historical rates. Yet you said the bank wanted interest from you through 2014. That would mean you borrowed $20K for six years,
2008-2014, an extraordinarily long period for a car loan. I had thought 5 years was tops. Further, even if you plug in a 10% interest rate, your
payments would be in $370 range and the average interest rate would yield $320.
The only way I can get a $500 payment is to assume 72 months at 22%. I’m just working off the information you shared. I don’t know the term or the
percent rate, so I’m working backwards from your payment.
So, either you did NOT have as good credit as you claim, which would result in a high interest rate FOUR times as much as what banks were charging at
the time, or you got yourself ripped off. Either way, that’s not the bank’s fault.
Today there are any number of brand new cars which cost way less than the $20K you borrowed: Honda Civic, Toyota Yaris, etc. In fact, you could have
bought your own car with 70K miles on it for $9-12K.
I can almost guarantee that you never read the promissory note that you signed, which was a valid legal contract. In there somewhere you would find
the terms of what would happen if you defaulted. You promised to pay the bank. You didn’t. They took the car, sold it, and paid off the loan with
it. That, sir, is how it works.
What I see here is a series of very poor decisions. From what you stated yourself here, you are financially naïve. I’m not calling you names here.
It’s just that you don’t appear to know what you are doing. A more frugal approach on your part and you would have had your car paid off before
you lost your job.
But, yeah. It’s all the bank’s fault. And now you can blame me, too.