inequality - poor people cant seem to catch a break

[Ceci03]

Am thinking about my friend and her stolen car - as she doesn't have any money she bought the car on finance. They have said she is still eligible for the 3 years of payments even if insurance does not pay out, which they may not. A more well off person would have taken a bank loan or bought a car out straight. If she had some savings she could try and buy another car. She is spending money on taxis bringing her dds taxis to and from school. It just goes on and on. It's very hard to pull yourself out of these situations isnt it.

Fair enough. However, she can afford to finance a car and she can afford a taxi. I think implying she is poor and can't catch a break is slightly misguided.
The situation with the car sucks, yes. But it wouldn't have been any different at a different level of income.

@Catza what would you do if you had no savings, were a single parent and had a child with special needs who needed a car to get to school, as well as another child. I think there's being hard up and then there's actual poverty where however hard you work or however hard you try you can never seem to dig yourself out of a hole. Anything unexpected or out of the blue and you're back to square one again, or worse than square one.

@Catza yes she could afford the repayments, but she cant afford the repayments and the taxis that's the problem now, let alone trying to get another car.

The second hand car market is much more expensive now. I’m not car proud but I couldn’t find a decent cheap runaround around the £1k mark when my last runaround died after 2.5 years. Ended up with a loan . Previously I’ve always bought cheap cars outright.

Having just seen my insurance for our cars go up 30% this year (no accidents and got it for a little less on one car in the end) more and more a core group of people are paying for either people who have NO insurance or who cannot be bothered to take care of what they dont effectively own.

This is a life lesson for your friend. A friend of mine a number of years ago was rushing to get ready for a family holiday and in error picked up the wrong passport. She was working full time, stressed to the eyeballs etc but she said she will never forgot checking and and realising she had the non attending adult son's passport instead. There was mitagating circumstances but not once did she try and blame anyone else.

Every year she goes away she remembers what she did and when she knows I am going away she always reminds me to check and double check what paperwork you have.

I suspect your friend will be exactly the same

It’s unpopular to be sure (and derailing of this thread)… but yes I do think that we all bare some personal responsibility and need to make reasonable efforts to prevent crimes against us.

I’m going to assume you do as well if you take reasonable precautions such as locking your front door, not having wads of cash hanging out of your purse or pocket, and don’t wander around in crappy neighborhoods wearing really expensive jewelry while talking on an expensive phone at all hours of the night.

Rich people have garages longer driveways live in better neighbourhoods an afford household security

My friend was liable for a loan for years because insurance wouldn't pay out when her bike was stolen their justification was despite her having private parking in a private car park she should have secured the bike to the ground by attaching the bike lock to a metal link? however as a renter she has zero control over the car park and couldn't fit one and of course the cameras weren't working that day 🙄

I wouldn't have taken a car on finance to begin with. If I can afford repayments, I can afford to save or I wouldn't have been approved for the loan. As a result, I would have had a cheaper car which would have been easy to replace with an equally cheap car without having 3 years of repaying for a car I no longer have hanging over my head. That's what I would do.
Your friend chose differently, for whatever reason. I don't know her reasons but I think it was a poor financial decision from the get go. Sometimes you have to make sensible choices when you don't have a lot to play with. Sometimes, even if you have a lot, you still need to think long and hard before making big commitments. My partner took a car loan when his business was doing well in 2018. In recent years, his income shrunk 70% and the car is a money drain that he wishes he never had to deal with. But here we are.

@Catza you assume she had years of saving behind and ahead of her. I think you're extremely out of touch with real life. She needed to get her kid to school - she didn't have time to save for years. This is the kind of attitude that I mean - I remember an analogy I heard once about everyone being in a building, the same building, but some are on the top floor and some are in the basement and the ones on the top floor cannot understand why the ones in the basement don't just 'move up' and get a better place.

Previously, if insurance companies were in any doubt as to the validity of a claim like this, they would ask for both keys and the log book to be returned to them. I used to work for an insurance company, no idea if they still do.

OP - surely she knows she is to blame for this one? Presumably she will never do this again?

As PP have said, someone "more well off" would still be liable for loan payments to the bank or finance company for a car stolen due to their negligence. Their insurance wouldn't pay out either, so either way (well off or not!) all parties would still be required to pay the remaining balance.

Financial inequality is unfair, not sure this is the best example really. Anyone leaving their keys outside would lose out if their insurance refused to pay out- unless someone is super wealthy I'm sure paying off a bank loan for a car you no longer have or even if you've paid outright losing thousands isn't exactly pleasant and for many would mean they couldn't afford a replacement.

Plus the amount owed on the finance will far exceed the amount paid out unfortunately due to interest, depreciation etc.

You can and should get gap insurance in this case, if you can't afford it then sadly you can't really afford to get a new car which will lose value quickly. Plenty of people have adapted vehicles second hand or the like.

I assume this because there is no other context for me to go on. If, say she had a car which died and the only option she had was to get a new one ASAP, then sure (although, I am not entirely sure why taking a loan at the bank is reserved for the "privileged" even in this scenario). However, if she was getting on just fine carless and then decided one morning she suddenly needed a car, then thinking about the long term consequences wouldn't go amiss.
The reason I struggle to comprehend the situation is because I am a person from the basement. Grew up in absolute poverty, parents missing meals, one winter coat every three years type of household. My mother having a car, let alone on finance would be in the same category as buying a villa in Monaco. So I know first hand how to count pennies and where things can go wrong.

A more well off person would have taken a bank loan or bought a car out straight

You'd still be liable to repay a bank loan if the car was stolen and if you'd bought outright you'd have lost it all.

This is a rotten situation for your friend but it doesn't seem to be worse because she's poor (other than the obvious fact that a poor person might be less able to recover from the loss).

I think you make some very good points. On reflection, I think it is reasonable to take precautions if you are going to have to deal with the repercussions of there being horrible people in the world who will take advantage of you if they can. It is still the thieves fault 100%, but unfortunately it is the poor woman who had her car stolen who is dealing with the consequences.

Agree this is all going off topic though. Sorry OP.

should she have kept her dd at home then - she couldnt get a loan from the bank - I think she was doing the best she could for her kid even though it stretched her and was probably "unwise financially". Now she is stuck paying the car loan for 3 years plus taxis to school. I don't know how she get shopping or anything else. It just sucks. Like I said which nobody seems to have answered - we take out insurance to protect against the unexpected - it was an honest mistake that many of us have done - what's the difference with that or crashing into someone or having a car accident.

Not everyone has £500.00 outright unfortunately or money to fix up an old car.

Not every car on finance is an expensive show off car. Mine was £250.00 a month (paid off now), it was the smallest, cheapest car I could get that would fit my childrens car seats at the time and wasn't brand new it was second hand. I could afford the monthly payments but not to buy the car outright. The car was needed for childcare/work.

Leaving the keys in the door is unfortunate but everyone makes mistakes and it is just so much harder when money is tight.

It sounds less about a rich/ poor divide and more about a series of bad luck events. Sometimes all it takes is some bad luck situations to change someone’s ‘ticking along’ to no longer being able to afford life.

yeh @Mummyofbananas that's what I've been trying to explain. Her car is/was 14 years old, but it was her independence. I think what I'm trying to say is if you're poor and single with no family support, it's very hard to dig yourself out of holes like this. Harder than if you are are medium hard-up with some savings, maybe some family, maybe a husband, maybe you don't need a car you can manage on the bus even though it's a nuisance.

Presumably the thief now has a set of her house keys.
The car finance may well be the least of her worries.

Car insurance is outrageously high anyway, I hope they aren't paying out for people's mistakes like this ffs.

Why are you being so nasty? She wasn't paying attention to her security because all her attention was on her child.

OP it's horrible for your friend, so unfair that there are people in the world that think it's ok to just take what other people have worked hard to get. It's horrible that now she has to pay out for taxis she can't afford and is limited to where she can easily go.

Paying for taxis on top of still paying for the car that she doesn't have means getting another car is going to be really, really difficult for potentially a pretty long time - and that's the difference between rich and poor. A rich person would be upset and annoyed - but they'd be able to just go out and buy another car.

From your thread title, I was coming on to agree with you completely, and have a rant myself about the state society has got itself in to, but this scenario doesn't demonstrate the inequality between rich and poor, or even 'doing okay' and poor, at all.
If you had a bank loan, you'd still have to pay it off.
It doesn't matter how well off you are, or how poor you are, you will be treated the same by the insurance company if you leave your car keys outside, next to your car.
This has nothing to do with her financial state.

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