How smart people buy and keep cars for the long term

Topical story of one poor schmuck:

Payday loan victim

I really feel for the guy; why the hell these scum are allowed to operate is a crime in itself.

 

While I do feel for him- what was he thinking!

Any entity who is going to give out a quick loan from a storefront operation is trouble!

Go to a Goodwill store - check your community for help, there are a number of church groups who routinely send out care bulletins to help people for home repair, ramps etc.

Community Action Groups and even many hospitals etc offer much help in these areas ....

Our Knights of Columbus group has a ministry to help individuals with medical needs.

The loan sharks and payday loans are acting legally ........ it is up to the individual to do their homework - understand what you are getting yourself into.

If people stop using the highway robbery loan services they will disappear on their own.

Governments can pass laws till the cows come home but if individuals continue to seek out these quick fast payday loans they are almost always going to have problems. .....and even if the government successfully shuts them down then the individuals will seek cheap easy loans form the black-market or other illegal entities.

The good news from the article is the guy received some help and some kind individuals bailed him out from his poor decision. Hopefully he learned an important lesson that someone his age should have learned many years ago before he got himself into this situation.

 

There we part.

 

If you are crossing a street who is responsible for making sure an oncoming car is not coming?

 

So the seniors that hand their banking info over to some huckster on the phone, got what they deserved? C'mon, apples and oranges.

 

Mendel, I respect you and like you and have enjoyed your post for years.
I do disagree with you on this one...but understand exactly where you are coming from and respect your position.
It is not an exaggeration to say I receive up to 15 scam calls a day.
I actually recently switched to an iPhone from a flip phone so I could enable call blocking where any number that is not in my contacts goes to voicemail.
There has to be some individual responsibility - it doesn't excuse the low lifes that offer the loans nor the Medicare/home health scam artist that deluge Medicare aged individuals with scam calls.

Note: I am a skin flint/cheapskate/penny pincher - the iPhone I am using is a cast off from one of my kids, it is a 12 year old(I think) iPhone se 1st generation that they found inadequate when they were in high school - I ordered a new battery for it on ebay and installed it myself. It is now my 'smart phone' and only people in my contacts list cause the phone to ring - all others go to voicemail.

 

we have consumer protection laws for many reasons, not just to protect the gullible from themselves.
but some are trying to dismantle them to favor big corporations

 

If you are crossing in a crosswalk, the oncoming traffic is supposed to stop.

There are rules on how these payday loan places behave. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforces the federal minimum. That gets in the way of profits for all lenders, thus why they are trying to kill the bureau. Before that, they got rid of home ec and the teaching of financial literacy in public schools.

 

With repair costs it may be not that smart? Maybe they don’t need a reliable commuter daily to a tough job. Maybe they have plenty of reserves to pay the repairs. In my experience rich people are not any smarter. They can be dumb and the money covers it up.

 

It’s also another whites only fountain as this admin dwells on what they think is racism against whites in former admins consumer protection rules. It may be what they think of as America being great is whites being not a race at all, but precious individuals. How dare non whites get the same favor. Hence Black Lives Matter arose. Besides, Obama did it and all must be undone whatever it is he did.
Not worried, all this will be reversed and the ship will get back on course, takes patience.

 

and they can vary between states.

There was (maybe still is) a particular used-car chain with an interesting business model: they have a lot full of cars, and none of those cars have prices. If there's one that interests you, you have to come inside and start a conversation with a sales rep, and the rep takes you through a whole inquiry into your income, budget, what payments you could afford, and at the end of all that reveals to you what that car's price just happens to be.

I learned about them because someone I knew (who had been on track to go to college, but life took a zag) ended up buying a car from them, on terms that worked out to $10,000 for a $2,000 car. (Going to college might have made it easier to see through that math and legalese.)

I learned that the state of New Jersey kicked that chain right out, saying thou shalt not do that unto our consumers.

My own current state, by contrast, was where the company was headquartered.

 

The amount of years you own a car for is a good indicator of if you're wise or wasteful when it comes to your finances.

 

Not anymore thanks to all the idiots who voted for a convicted felon to lead their country:

"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has revoked the mandatory underwriting provisions of its payday loan rule, which affects how payday loans and similar financial products are regulated. This change means that certain protections previously in place may no longer be enforced." Payday loan protections | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

 

A Toyota dealer I'll no longer custom wouldn't tell you the price of a used car until running a credit check.