“He will never be able to lease a car again.”
Theoretically, a car lease is pretty straightforward.
First, you sign an agreement to take temporary possession of a car. From there, you are able to drive the car and use it at your leisure, though some leases may come with stipulations like mileage limits.
Finally, when the lease ends, you can either return your car or, in some cases, make an offer to buy it.
For most people, this system makes sense. However, there are a select few who don’t quite understand it. These people think, “I’ve already poured all of this money into a car. Surely that means I own it—or, at the very least, I can get a deal on it.”
While this may sound ridiculous to anyone well-versed in car leases, there really are people like this in the world. One user on TikTok claims he recently had to deal with such a person. Here’s how he handled it.
In a video with over 176,000 views, TikTok user and Mercedes-Benz salesman Mikey (@mikeymercedes) films what appears to be a call between himself and a customer.
According to Mikey, the customer’s lease ended four months ago. Despite that, he was still holding onto the car.
“It’s their asset, and you’re just kind of holding it hostage. So, are you prepared to pay them?” he says, talking to the customer. The payment here would be to Mercedes.
The customer seems hesitant to accept that he would need to pay to keep the car. Instead, he suggests giving the car to the dealer. From there, Mercedes could get paid or forgive the debt, and then somebody would get a check for the difference.
This is, needless to say, simply not possible.
“It’s scheduled for repo, so it’s out there. There’s no way for us to, like, look at it or touch it or anything like that,” Mikey states.
The “good news,” as Mikey puts it, is that the customer can still buy the car if he so desires. The bad news for the customer is that he is not in a position of negotiation. In Mikey’s explanation, the car is a “charge-off,” meaning that the car could be collected and recovered by Mercedes at any time. In many states, this can be done without a court judgment.
Eventually, Mikey tries to get the customer on the phone with a Mercedes representative. The customer hangs up.
At this point, the Mercedes worker states that the account “is actually a repo account, so you would need to actually call our skip recovery department. They may be able to assist you with any kind of payoff information, but the customer was 151 days past due.”
Motor1 contacted story subjects. We will update this story if they respond.
It’s unclear if the situation shown in this video is real. Hopefully, you will never find yourself in a situation where you’re holding onto a car that is four months over its lease expiration date.
But if you do find yourself in that situation, there are a few things you can do.
Generally speaking, there are three main options for when a lease has expired. First, one can ask for a formal extension on their lease. While it may not be granted after four months, there’s a chance that the lessor will allow the lessee to continue possession of the car.
Second, you can ask whether it’s possible to buy the car. A normal lease may contain an end-of-lease purchase option. The number on the lease may no longer be valid if you hold onto the vehicle for four months longer than the lease agreement. That said, you can still contact the lessor and see if there’s a way to receive an offer of a payoff or sale price.
Finally, if these two options are unavailable, you should negotiate a return. The company will likely not let you simply hold onto the car forever—and while you may think you can get away with continuing to drive it, you don’t want to be stuck somewhere because the company repo’d your car in your absence.
In the comments section, users were taken aback—but not necessarily surprised—by the alleged customer’s brazenness.
“I did collections for 12 years and it’s amazing what people will try to get away with in car loans,” wrote a user.
“He just [expletive] his credit,” offered another. “Last time I saw a customer do this with a lease it was a charge off for the original msrp of the car. Dropped their credit score by like 150 points.”
“Theft,” declared a third. “It’s taken too lightly.”
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