1. Last summer I cosigned on a car loan for a then-friend. I have heard the “you idiot” speech from every imaginable source, so please spare me that. Long story short, he lost his high-paying job a few months after that out of nowhere, with no warning and no reason given to me.
As you can imagine, bills started to fall behind and I dropped a few thousand trying to keep them on time (I live with him in an apartment). This was when I believed he was making some sort of effort to get back on his feet.
Since the turn of the new year he has made it abundantly clear that he cares so little about his life that he is going to nuke the whole thing and take me down with it. He basically just refuses to pay any of the bills, and I don’t know what his work situation is because he has lied about it multiple times to get me off his back.
Thankfully the rest of the bills including the lease for the apartment are in his name, not mine. But since I cosigned on this car for him, and he is basically refusing to pay on it, voluntarily repo it, or do anything to stop them from pulling up and towing it away in a few weeks, I figured I would ask if anyone has any ideas on what I can do ASIDE from just waiting for the final tally from the loan agency and paying it off (after they auction it, of course).
I don’t expect miracles but I figure it’s better than just blindly paying off a 20k loan balance. If anyone is wondering, the payment + insurance are over 600 a month. I cannot afford to pay that for 6 years. I already did it several months and now have arrived at this point. I figure even if my credit gets screwed from the repo at least the amount owed to the bank will be less than if I just assume payments now, and he won’t be driving around a car that I am paying for like his fill-in dad.
2. Around age 20 I was pressured into cosigning a student loan with an ex gf, her family didn’t have good credit supposedly and very heavily pressured and manipulated me. My father told me not to do it, but me wanting to be the “hero” went ahead and did it, my father made me have them sign a contract that if she defaulted her parents would pick up the payments.
Well like you guessed the relationship didn’t last and neither did her payments. I didn’t know this until 3 years later when I applied and got denied for my first car loan. This person whom I haven’t spoken to in years was ruining my future.
My credit was 580, when I’d never missed a payment on anything ever. This is when the legal battle started with the collection agencies which threatened me nonstop and changed every other week, her and her parents. The contract meant nothing to the collection agencies and her parents refused to pick up the phone. She refused to pay or would say she paid and blatantly lied.
7 years post cosigning I’d had enough with the threatening calls and being dodged by her parents. And the constant lies of her making payments, maybe she’d make 1 and then you wouldn’t hear from the creditors for months.
I called every single lawyer I could to see who could help me. I finally found one who would and the agency was great. 5,000$ in legal fees and I was finally free of this nightmare. He sued the agency got my name off the loan and sued her parents, I decided not to pursue damages and just have them pay 1/2 lawyer fees. I just wanted this over with.
Nearly 17 years later I have a 795 credit score and some assets. But the stress of the creditors constantly harassing me was horrid, 20 yr old me didn’t and prolly couldn’t understand the impact of owing someone else’s debt. It’s made me extremely cautious around anything credit related. My 20s we’re significantly more stressful because of this event and if someone reading this is tempted to do this, please don’t.
3. I co-signed a loan for my parents. It’s dumb, I know. I’ve accepted that it was a huge mistake and now I’m trying to get out of it. So far, they’ve missed the last two payments and it’s hurting my credit. We’re past the halfway point and they would be 70% done with paying it off if they had made the last two payments as they should have. Me paying for it is completely out of the question. I was going to call the lender and see if I can lower the payment or get some type of forgiveness, although I’m sure that’s impossible.
4. 22-year-old me cosigned on my irresponsible mother’s car in 2014. Since then, she has been late on monthly car payments 52% of the time for 7.5 years.
I have been on her ass nonstop the whole time, and have told her on countless occasions that if she can’t make a timely payment, she needs to inform me so I can, then she can pay me back. And on countless occasions, I find out the payment was late and asked her why, only to find out she was too shameful to ask me.
I am now 30 and married, and my wife and I cannot get a house because my credit score is shredded SOLELY due to my mom’s car. I have never, not once in my 10 years of car payments, been late, missed or anything negative. My mom is currently 28 days overdue on the payment, and has been telling me on about 5 or 6 separate days since the payment was due that “i will pay today”. She has the WORST excuses ever when I call her out, sometimes no excuses at all.
She is irresponsible and fucking my life up. My wife is in tears because she feels we will never have our house (we were on the fucking brink last year of our dream house but our credit fucking ruined us man).
Any tips on what to do? Is there a way to make this known to credit bureaus and have it removed?
5. My parents are in a really rough spot. My older sister was set to finish college this year a few weeks ago, but has since cut contact with my parents. After they did some looking of their own, they found she has been evicted from her appartment in Florida. She also told her place of work she was quitting to “go home” which is most likely Pennsylvania as that is where we grew up. The big issue lies with the fact that they are very unsure that she will pay her student loans. My dad cosigned on the student loans, and as far as we can tell there is no easy way out of this. If she does not pay them my parents will most certainly lose the house and if it gets to that point my parents are screwed, so please, if anyone has any good info on where to go from here it would be much appreciated.
6. About 10 years ago my best friend called me up. He’d graduated from an expensive private school with ~$100k in student loan debt, and had been admitted to law school at the same place. Turned out he was having a wee bit of trouble financing it. He wanted to know if I’d co-sign on a law school loan or two.
At the time, I didn’t even know what that meant (I got through college with no debt, thank the Old Gods). Called up my dad who strenuously advised me to under NO circumstances co-sign on anyone else’s loan, ever. So I told my buddy sorry, but no.
Unfortunately, our friendship was never the same after that. I’m sure he resented me for not being a true bud and signing. But somehow or other he managed to get financing for God knows how many more tens of thousands in loans for law school.
Fast forward 10 years. Found out recently that, like many with law degrees in the current economy, his income hasn’t kept pace with his loans, and he’s defaulted on his student loans and the debt collectors are pounding on his door, taking his car, garnishing wages, taking out liens, etc.
And if I had agreed to co-sign those years ago, those debt collectors would be coming after me.
Thank the Old Gods for my dad’s wise advice, and the lesson is: never, ever co-sign. Ever.