Jul 16 2012

4 Rules for Getting a Car Loan

Americans are buying cars again in a big way, with new car sales expected to be up 30% year-over-year in May, continuing the trajectory of rising demand thats been going strong all year. Given that most of us arent going to walk into a dealership and plunk down $35,000 in cash on the desk, a run on new cars means a surge in auto lending. According to the Federal Reserve, the category of credit that includes car loans had a monthly jump of over 7% jump in April, so its clear that a lot of us are financing our new wheels.

Of course, shopping for a car loan isnt as much fun as shopping for the vehicle itself but its equally as important. Here are four basic guidelines everyone should follow.

Know Your Credit Situation

If youre in the market for a new car, Review your credit reports from each of the three major credit bureaus long before you apply for a loan, the FDIC advises in a recent consumer newsletter. Go to annualcreditreport.com and pull one or all of your three free annual credit reports. If theres a mistake — such as a paid-off debt being listed as outstanding, or an item in collections that doesnt belong to you — you want to get that straightened out, or you could wind up paying a higher rate. Even if your credit is blemished, knowing where you stand is half the battle.

If your credit is good, you still should not assume that youll qualify for the 0% financing offers many dealers dangle in their TV and radio ads, says Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety. She says roughly nine out of 10 buyers never qualify for that and wind up paying a higher rate.

(MORE: A Non-Profit Car Loan is Still a Car Loan)

Shop Around

Our number-one piece of advice for consumers is never, ever get your loan from the dealer, Shahan says. Its advice other consumer advocates echo.

Get preapproved for financing before you set foot in the dealership, says Chris Kukla, senior counsel for government affairs at the Center for Responsible Lending. Check out your local banks and credit unions. Although multiple inquiries can drag down your credit score — the last thing you want when trying to get a good rate on a loan, you have 30 days in which multiple lenders pull your credit and it will only count as a single inquiry.

Dealers are legally allowed to add to your interest rate in order to compensate themselves, Kukla says in effect, hiding the size of their profit from the buyer. The only way youre going to know if youre getting the best rate out there is if youve gotten quotes from other lenders. If youve been preapproved by another lender, you can also use that as a bargaining chip when the dealer presents an APR.

The FDIC also warns that consumer should be cautious about dealers who offer to pay off the loan on your trade-in. In some cases, the agency says, when dealers tell you they can make your existing loan go away, they pay it, then turn around and bury that cost in your new loan. The old loan doesnt disappear — you just dont see it because its been added to the new loan.

(MORE: 5 Things to Keep in Mind If Buying or Selling a Used Car)

Dealers say all the time, We have multiple lenders, Kukla says, but they leave out the fact that theyre really looking for the loan on which they can get the biggest cut. About 75% to 80% of people have no idea dealers could do that, he says. For people with good credit, not shopping around could add as much as two percentage points to the loan APR; for people with poor credit, it can mean a five percentage point difference — which adds up to serious money over the life of the loan.

Dont Get Upsold

The profit margin dealers make on actual cars has decreased thanks to a better-informed public that compares prices online before setting foot on the showroom floor. To make up for this, sellers rely to an increasing degree on their service departments and other ancillary services that they pitch to people once they sit down in the financing office, says Kukla.

About 50% of a dealers profits come from the finance office, he says. As a result, car salespeople pitch things like rustproofing, undercoating, gap insurance, extended warranties and a whole slew of other add-ons.

Do you really need all — or any — of these? Thats a topic for a whole other article, but the bottom line is that you dont need to decide any of this in the financing office, no matter what they tell you. For those add-on products, its really difficult to compare, he says.

Kukla says if youre feeling pressured by the sales pitch, keep in mind that you can buy any of these extras after the fact, although the dealer will try to discourage this by pointing out that you wont be able to roll the cost into your loan.

(MORE: Car Shoppers’ Decisions Most Influenced by … Person Trying to Sell Them Cars?)

Avoid the Yo-Yo Trap

Kukla says the Center for Responsible Lending fields a steady stream of complaints by car buyers who have been taken in by this bait-and-switch tactic, which involves offering conditional financing so buyers can take home their new vehicles on the spot. In a so-called yo-yo scam, the dealer leads the customer to believe that the financing has been squared away, when in reality, it never was. Then, days or even weeks after the customer has purchased the vehicle, the dealer calls to say theres been a problem with the financing — and that they have no choice but to pay a much higher interest rate or forfeit the car and pay hefty wear and tear or rental fees.

The dealers use very coercive tactics to get them to sign the new contracts, Kukla says. Many were told their trade-in couldnt be returned or the down payment was nonrefundable, he says.

Kukla says theres a simple way to avoid this scam: Say you wont take delivery of the car until the financing is final.

MORE: Why Small Cars Are Suddenly Big Business

United Car Loan will be the top auto loan and car financing useful resource for your bad credit car loan.

Jul 13 2012

Car Finance Experts Car Loan 4U Reveals Last Month’s Most Popular Vehicles

Car Finance Experts Car Loan 4U Reveals Last Month’s Most Popular Vehicles
The UK’s leading car finance website Car Loan 4U reveals the most popular vehicles for May 2012.

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May 18 2012

Bank employee arrested for car loan fraud

Based on secret information, the Delhi Police on Thursday arrested Naveen Shah, a private bank employee, for forging documents to provide car loans to customers.
The police have also recovered three i10 cars, a laptop, a few pen drives, a HP printer-cum-scanner and six forged

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May 15 2012

Car refinancing: Risks & benefits of auto loan refi

Youre looking for some extra cash, and you see the ad on TV: Refinance your car and save money, or just lower your monthly payment by extending the length of your loan. Question is, is it really a good idea? Before you refinance, its important to understand that a positive tool like refinancing can be used in shortsighted and reckless ways.

Refinancing involves transferring your cars title — official ownership — from one creditor to another. The assumption when you sign up for a car loan is thats it, said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at Credit.com, but as long as youre still paying for your car loan, you can refinance it.

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Apr 23 2012

Car finance experts Car Loan 4U offers alternative to BMW recall

Car finance experts Car Loan 4U offers alternative to BMW recall
The UK’s leading car finance website Car Loan 4U comments on BMW recall of 1.3 million cars.

Attain pre-approval for new car loans or possibly a used car loan in under a few minutes.

Apr 20 2012

Feds target companies promising car loan modifications

SACRAMENTO, CA – The Federal Trade Commission is targeting two local companies that claim they can reduce a car owners monthly payments.

Folsom-based Hope for Car Owners and Roseville-based Vehicle Loan Modification are accused of false advertising and deceptive practices in separate civil lawsuits filed in Sacramento.

On its website, Hope for Car Owners claims a 99 percent success rate and a money-back guarantee.

The FTC complaint says the company collected as much as $500 upfront and, in numerous incidents, failed to even contact the lender. The complaint also says the company refused to honor refund requests.

The complaint against Vehicle Loan Modification, which operates the website vehicleloanmod.com, is nearly identical.

On its website, Help for Car Owners lists its addressas a private mailbox at a UPS Store in Folsom.

According to the FTC, the website and toll-free phone number are paid for with the personal credit card of Patrick Freeman, the companys sole manager.

Freeman said he was unaware he was being sued until he was contacted by News10.

Providing a comment about the lawsuit at this time would be premature, Freeman wrote in an email.

Theman behindVehicle Loan Modification lists his corporate address as a home in Roseville.

Reached by telephone, Naythem Nafso said he stopped accepting new business last year because clients had unreasonable expectations.

Nafso claimed an 80 percent success rate when he was active. The system was working. Absolutely, Nafso insisted.

Both companies have received an F rating from the Better Business Bureau of Northeast California because of consumer complaints.

The FTC lawsuits are seeking a court order blocking allegedly misleading claims. The FTC also seeks refunds for customers who didnt receive the service they expected.

by George Warren, GWarren@news10.net

News10/KXTV

Attain pre-certification for new car loans or possibly a used car loan in under a second.

Apr 19 2012

Car loan experts Car Loan 4U Claim Motorists Hit By Fuel Duty Increase May …

Car loan experts Car Loan 4U Claim Motorists Hit By Fuel Duty Increase May Turn to Green Cars After Budget
Car Loan 4U claim a growing interest in car finance deals for more fuel efficient vehicles is likely to increase following the rise in fuel duty announced during the Budget.

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Apr 18 2012

Making Student Loans Dischargeable in Bankruptcy Could Be a Free-Market Idea

Heres a riddle that many Americans are familiar with: how are a house mortgage, credit card debt, and a car loan different from student loans? For the latter, the federal government has gone the extra mile to protect lenders by making them non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. This means that student loans, unlike almost every other kind of loan available, cannot be escaped through bankruptcy. With student loan debt approaching nearly $1 trillion nationally, a growing portion of Americans are facing a growing burden of inescapable indebtedness. This burden of debt is especially borne by the young, the group which has perhaps been hit the hardest by the economic slowdown.

It wasnt always this way. According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, until 1976, all student loans could be discharged in bankruptcy. Up until 1998, student loans could be discharged after a waiting period (of initially five and later seven years after repayment was scheduled to begin). In 1998, Congress made federal student loans nondischargeable in bankruptcy, and, in 2005, it similarly extended nodischargeability to private student loans. (Extreme hardship can still result in the discharge of some student loans, but this condition is rather difficult to establish.) Since 2000, student loan debt has exploded, and private student loans have grown at an accelerated rate. Somehow, people still went to college and were able to get loans prior to 2005. Clearly, certain lenders found it in their own interest to provide loans even when there was a chance of bankruptcy.

Some have tried to frame the issue of nondischargeability of student loans in terms of guaranteeing access to education. According to these arguments, the fact that such loans are not dischargeable allows students greater access to higher education: since lenders know that students cannot escape their debt, they will be encouraged to lend money out more easily (increasing the amount of money lent out and lowering perhaps the interest rates on these loans in some cases).

Such arguments would seem to ignore some of the hard lessons of the past decade, when gratuitous credit for both private individuals and corporations helped lead to an unsustainable bubble in real estate and securities. Moreover, at least people can declare bankruptcy and escape their mortgages (and certain favored companies can get government subsidies so that they can avoid bankruptcy). This is not the case for student loans. Furthermore, the argument that educational access is improved by creating an eternal tie between borrower and debt could be applied to other areas as well. By such reasoning, perhaps the nondischargeability of car loans would help Americans get better cars or the nondischargeability of credit card debts could improve the material comforts of Americans by giving them access to more credit.

Theres another approach to bankruptcy, however. Borrowers potential for bankruptcy represents a kind of risk for lenders — a risk that encourages lenders to be efficient about whom they lend money to. And this efficiency may lead to results in the interests of both borrowers and lenders. Due to this risk, the lender needs to determine how likely the borrower will be to pay him back, and the lenders evaluation of this risk can lead to him not lending too much money to the borrower, thereby preventing the borrower from getting over his head in debt.

Consider the case of student loans. If these loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy, lenders (especially private ones) would have to be more prudent about how much money they lend out to particular individuals. Currently, lenders have relatively little compunction about lending out $75,000 to a student as they know that this students odds of escaping this debt are relatively small: it might not be paid back on time, but the lender will maintain a perpetual claim on the borrower. If there were a greater risk of bankruptcy, however, lenders might be more targeted in the amounts they lend.

Ironically, this targeting might make education more — not less — affordable. There is a limit to what students and their families can currently pay, and, by limiting the ability of some to borrow against their future, regulators might suggest to colleges and universities that the spigot of ever-more money might be turned off. This economic pressure might encourage universities to be more efficient with their own spending, thereby slowing the rate of tuition growth. Increased lending standards might encourage students to be more prudent with their own money. Higher standards might raise hard questions. A student might ask herself whether she should go to a low-ranked private university for four years or instead spend her first two years at a much more affordable community college before transferring to another university. The end result for the students employment prospects might be the same, but the debt accumulated along the way might be very different under those two scenarios.

Moreover, there is a matter of fundamental principle here. Bankruptcy has a proud tradition in free market economies. The ability to start anew is both good for the human spirit and economically beneficial: this ability encourages taking risks and gives a sense of hope in the face of adversity. Its true that a college degree cannot be repossessed like a car with delinquent payments can be, but there has been little evidence that, prior to 2005, there was massive abuse on the part of student loan borrowers. Conservative politics is not just about the crude application of abstract principles; it also involves attention to local realities. Yet it seems that there was considerable access to credit for student loans prior to their being made non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

Republicans might have a particular interest in restoring market norms to student loans: by normalizing student loans, Republicans could at once stand for free market principles and demonstrate their empathy for younger voters. If conservatives are serious about spreading free market ideas (rather than merely using the rhetoric of the market to hammer the opponents of the moment), a right-led movement to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy could be one more point of evidence for Americas youth that free market ideas can work for a wide variety of people.

News stories abound with examples of graduates who have borrowed colossal amounts of money and who have little potential of paying it back, at least in the short- and medium-term. These students are shackled to this debt. Its true that these graduates chose to borrow this money, but it is also true that the federal government has chosen to give protections to lending companies for a certain kind of loan. It is not clear whether these special protections for certain lenders are in the best interests of the nation and its citizens, nor is it clear why the loans taken on by some of Americas youngest should be the hardest to discharge. Making student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy is not loan forgiveness: in filing for bankruptcy, an individual would pay a considerable price for the dissolution of this debt. But the ability to pay this price is one we offer to borrowers of countless other loans.

The mechanics of how to put in place such dischargeability are complicated. Would old student loans be made retroactively dischargeable in bankruptcy? Would there be a waiting period before someone could discharge his or her loans? Would both federal and private loans be made dischargeable? But these complications should not deter conservatives from taking seriously the free market case for student loan dischargeability.

In 2008, Congress decided it was in the national interest to rescue multinational banks from the prospect of bankruptcy, passing TARP. If corporate bailouts are good enough for billionaires, perhaps the possibility of student loan bankruptcy (far from a bailout) might be permitted average Americans.

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Apr 18 2012

Car Dealer Loan Scams Targeted By FTC For Deceptive Loan Payoff Promises