Car Repossession Before First Payment?

[noles825]

I live in Florida and I purchased a car a month ago, and at the time left a $2000 "hold check," which was to be held for 14 days in order to secure the amount required for the downpayment.

After the 14 days, I saw nothing deposited in to my account. I figured that it somehow fell through the cracks, but neglected to call (no excuse).

Yesterday, I received a call from the dealership notifying me that they had tried to deposit my check and that it came back insufficient funds. I contacted the bank and nothing was ever deposited. Now, there is not $2000 to cover the amount because I had some things come through on the account that I was not expecting, including an amount that is currently in dispute. So, he said that they only had 24 hours to get the downpayment secured or else they wouldn't be able to secure financing.

So, after waiting over 2 weeks to notify me of the problem, they gave me an ultimatum...I had FedEx them a check for $2000 by Saturday (This was on Thursday). Then, Friday morning, before I had the chance to send it, I was told to either return the vehicle or have the money to them by noon (this was at 10 AM). I had absolutely no way of getting over there. So, despite waiting 2 weeks to even notify me that there was a problem, I was given less than an hour to fix it.

I have been hung up on by not only my sales rep, but also 2 of the general managers. They told me that the car has now been reported "stolen." I am not hiding the vehicle. I told them that I have returned it to my house and that they can take back the vehicle. The dealership is nearly an hour from my house and I have no way of getting it over there and getting back at this point in the day. Now they are saying that if I don't return the vehicle that they will come out and repo it and charge me $800.

I guess my questions are:
How did they not secure financing after a month?
How can they ask for the vehicle back if they never deposited the hold check that I gave them in the first place?
How are they able to give me only a couple of hours to return the vehicle after neglecting to let me know about the problem for over 2 weeks?
Can they report the car stolen if they know where it is and the car is and I am not driving it or attempting to hide it?
If they DID report it stolen how can they expect me to return the car to the dealership, which is over an hour away?
Can they charge me $800 for repossessing it?

I guess I'm just wondering what type of notice that they have to give me before mandating that I return the car...and how they are even able to do this without ever depositing that check.

[Just Breath]

Seriously?

$2000 was obviously a downpayment. Your financing approval was, I'm sure, conditioned based upon the $2000 down payment. Your check was no good, therefore you have not satisfied the down payment and your financing likely fell through.......

You knew there were insufficient funds in your checking account to cover the check and it is irrelevant that it took them 2 weeks to discover it. If you wrote the check, it's your responsibility to make sure sufficient funds remain in the account to cover it no matter how long it takes them to submit it to your bank.

You have no right to the vehicle and need to move heaven and earth to take it back to the dealership ASAP. Based on what you have explained, the dealership is not at fault, you are.

[jk]

After the 14 days, I saw nothing deposited in to my account. I figured that it somehow fell through the cracks, but neglected to call (no excuse).

Yesterday, I received a call from the dealership notifying me that they had tried to deposit my check and that it came back insufficient funds. I contacted the bank and nothing was ever deposited. Now, there is not $2000 to cover the amount because I had some things come through on the account that I was not expecting,

there would not be anything deposited unless you deposited something into your accoutn. The dealership was trying to withdraw something from your account.

It sounds like since you did not see the check in your account when you thought it should show up, you continued to write checks against that account so it was insufficient to cover the $2k check.

as just breath posted, YOU need to get the car back to them. There are other ways you could be in legal hot water regarding this situation with your account so I would tend to take care of the situation now while there is no other problems involved.