Imagine finally paying off your debt, only for your bank to sneak in and take your property without any notice or warning. A Georgia woman had been working to pay off a debt from Capital One Auto Finance and ended up getting her car repoed due to nonpayment. However, she was eventually able to pay off both the fee to take back her car and her loan. Capital One even sent her a congratulatory message for taking care of the debt, but it wasn’t until a few days later that her car went missing.
She first called Capital One to see if anyone from the bank had taken her car by mistake, but the representative said, “No, they did not take my car, and everything was good on their end.” Without hesitation, she called the police, as this meant her car had been stolen. Less than a week had passed when she received a call from her insurance, which gave her quite the unexpected development on her vehicle’s whereabouts. “They had found my car about 2 hours away, and Capital One was the one who had it towed,” she explained.
Confused on what she’s supposed to do, she turned to r/legaladvice to ask for suggestions. “It is a huge mess,” she expressed; the bank’s management claimed not to know her car was towed and that they hadn’t processed anything regarding a repossession. Her loan had already been paid off, after all. “I want to get a lawyer because they stole my property and illegally had my car towed,” she exclaimed, understandably upset about the bank’s deception and irresponsibility. However, some Reddit users don’t believe the bank to be completely at fault.
“[It’s] hard to say who’s at fault,” remarks a commenter. “[It] seems like Capital One did close your account and maybe the repo company didn’t update their active orders in a timely fashion.” Others believe that her chances of pursuing anything legal against the bank are quite slim, unfortunate as that sounds. “You will only have a case if they refuse to pay the tow and storage fees,” states one user.
Going up against a well-known bank or even a third-party repo company is easier said than done. Hopefully, this Georgia car owner has been compiling all the messages, emails, and even recorded calls as evidence in case she decides to sue.
