This took place in TN.
I am a soldier with the 101st Airborne Division, who served over 21 years and two wars with the United States Army. I originally retired in 2004, but after about 2 years, my life of retirement was not what I dreamed it would be. I went through a long and drawn out divorce that forced me to file bankruptcy and left me with virtually nothing. I lost half of my retirement and the rest of my personal property to my ex-wife. The only two things of any real value that I did get to keep were my home and my vehicle, both of which were still being financed.(I never reafirmed them) I continued to make payments on both my home mortgage and my vehicle loan so that I would not lose those as well.
I bought my Ford F150 truck in 2001 for $31,000.00 and had been paying on it ever since. I only had 6 more payments left until it would be paid for! In May of this year (2006) I was recalled back in to the Army out of retirement. I had about a one month gap between my old job and when I actually reported to the Army and started drawing a pay check again. I realized that I would have to contact my two creditors to try and arrange some payment plan to make up for the period where I did not earn any income. I still had to make my child support payments, and remember half of my retirement was going to my ex-wife. I worked out a plan with the creditors (mortgage company and Ford Credit), to double up on payments when I started to draw my active duty pay again.
Everything worked out according to plan, or so I thought. One morning I woke up and got ready to report to my unit just as I do each and every morning, only on the morning of 3 August, 2006 I went outside to discover my truck was missing. The first thing I did was call 911 to report it stolen. The dispatcher asked if it could have been repossessed and I said no since I was up to date on my payments. She came back on the line a minute later and notified me that her records indicated that it had been repossessed and that I needed to contact my lien holder.
I contacted Ford credit and the first thing I got was coldness and rudeness on the phone. I was transferred to their bankruptcy department and was told that my payment history showed 53 days late. I tried to explain to the individual from Ford that I worked all this out over the phone with one of their customer service representatives months prior and had since brought the payments up to date. He told me that since I had filed bankruptcy, it was my responsibility to make all payments on time and that it was my own fault. I tried to explain that this was my only means of transportation to provide a living for my family and also explained that I had been paying on this vehicle for 5 years without missing a payment and only had 6 more payments until it was completely paid for. He told me that the only course of action that I had was to pay the balance off including a repossession fee of $365.00. That left me with a total of $4655.93, which I was I was forced to borrow from my credit union at Fort Campbell, KY, who bent over backwards to try and help me in this whole predicament. I ran into further problems with Ford Credit when they became uncooperative in providing the necessary information that I needed in order to obtain the loan. The first thing I asked for was my payment history so I could show the credit union that I had been making payments on the truck, even after I filed bankruptcy. Ford Credit told me that I could find that information myself at Fordcredit.com. When I tried to access that account, I discovered they had closed my on-line account. When I called them back to inquire about this, they said “since I did not own the truck anymore, I had no right to the account”. I asked if they could fax me the information that I needed. They told me “no, they could send it off in the mail”. I was getting more than frustrated and furious with them because I was running against the clock at this point. I only had 10 days from the date that they took the truck before it would be sold at an auction. I can only surmise that this was a tactic that Ford deliberately deployed so they could sell a truck that was worth over $11,000.00.
Again, I still am completely shocked and appalled that they would treat a soldier this way even after I had made arrangements with their customer service section and had been making the payments for the past 5 years with only six more payments until the vehicle was paid off. I never received any phone calls or notice what so ever that there was a problem with my account or that they were going to take any action. The only way I found out that my truck would be sold in 10 days was from when I went to reclaim my personal property out of the truck at the “impound lot”. Ford Credit never sent me a notice, but did send my ex-wife one in the mail.
Once I got the money and paid off Ford Credit, I went to try and reclaim my truck from the company that took it from my residence. Once I got there, they told me that I would have to pay another $140.00 in storage fees. This was on top of the $365.00 repossession fee that I had already paid.
I am just wondering if any laws were violated at all.

