Only about two weeks passed in that time. It was the one time I did set foot back on that car lot, to watch her hand them the $150 to catch up, that I gave her to take the car. She was initially going to voluntarily repo it by having AAA tow it to them (with the exploded battery it couldn't possibly start) but I wanted the car since I knew it ran well, had the rack replaced, only needed the battery and some cleanup around it, and was a 40mpg car.
Our agreement was for me to make the payments for a month or two to her, and she would pay them, and by that time I would have the additional $600 needed to pay TT&L to transfer the note to my name. I had the money at that point plus some, but since they ended up picking up the car, they wanted to sell it to me for the same $1000 down and $75 a week for a 18 months. Which would be like starting over, which would be stupid. I said, "what if I pay the repo fee ($450) and the $600 in missing payments ($1050, of which I had $800 on me and I could have had the other $250 the next day), bring back the TT&L money (another $600) in a couple weeks, and take up the payments from there?" They said, no, you can buy out the note, but you're paying the interest too, all payments, plus the repo fees, one lump sum, no payments because she defaulted on the contract. I didn't have 3K to drop on a car, so I picked up my tools out of the trunk and my Nextel charger out of the lighter socket and walked away.
On the way home I spotted a clean 1997 Intrepid for $800 and proceeded to spend another $700 fixing blown head gaskets and I was good to go just in time to quit driving for the courier service. Shortly thereafter I sold the Intrepid to a friend (for the $1500 I had in it) who still has it to this day (but we never talk, she just still has it, because it's in the background of the pictures she posts on Facebook when she goes out to clubs with her friends...I'm only assuming it doesn't have problems because unlike every other aspect of her life, she doesn't complain about that car on her FB page)
What I should have done was send the payments as money orders to the note lot myself through the mail, with her name on the return address, until I had the $600 to get the transfer done.
But I was younger and stupider and she was an old friend who I trusted and did so stupidly. At least I was only out about $750 or so for 2 months of transportation. It could have been much worse. This friend has since had a couple kids, got married, had another kid, and went vegan and pro-choice and a bunch of other nonsense. Typical soccer mom type now, you'd never know she was the same person as before. But given another chance, I think she'd do the same thing, and I hope that mean streak doesn't come out in her marriage or that won't last long at all.
