I am reluctant to write about this incident, because it is a bit embarrassing since I should have known better. It needs to be told and I want to share it with others who might be tempted into signing up for this type loan, which is a finance company rip-off. This is one “financial demon” that I was delighted to pay off and completely wash my hands of.
I will refrain from revealing the name for obvious reasons, but it is a household name. One that has been around for years. One most everybody knows or has heard about.
I kept getting offers in the mail from credit card and finance companies. This particular finance company sent me a check in the mail for $2,500. all it needed for approval was my signature.
It is hard to look at a $2,500 check with your name on it and tear it up, or send it back, so I cashed it. Not too smart!
We have all heard the old saying, “easy come easy go,” and “a fool and his money are soon parted.” That was true to form on both counts.
My wife and I took a nice little vacation trip and that was nice. I think the $2,500 was gone before we were half way through our vacation. Yeah, easy come, easy go!
I hadn’t thought too much about it until a few months later while my wife was writing out checks to pay the bills and complaining that the little vacation check we had cashed was costing us dearly.
I was shocked to see what we still owed. After eighteen payments of $71.80 each($1,292) total, I still had a balance of $3,811!(total of payments)and my pay-off balance was $2,352.65.
So, After eighteen monthly payments we had only paid the original amount down $147.35! Five months and five payments later I again called for a total of payments balance and the balance was down to $3,445, but now the pay-off balance is $2,381.32!
So five months and five payments later(a total of $359.60) the pay-off balance is $28.67 more than back in April. This is like throwing money away! Or like wiping your Manchac-back door- on an endless hoop. There’s no end to it!
Live and learn. I have out-done Rip Van Winkle! He only slept 20 years. I slept twenty-five or thirty before waking up!
To get out of this situation I took out a bank loan and paid the finance company off. Thank the LORD they didn’t have a pay-off penalty!
Later I figured the annual percentage rate would have been 100% had I continued making payments to the end of the loan.