[Dutch Lock Down Day Four Hundred Ninety]
“It’s Complicated: We Bought A House” will hopefully happen by … say … September? October?
Good times.
Oke, so, remember when I said I’d be buying a car. But then I didn’t?
USAA gave me a car loan. Which meant that when I went to ‘buy’ the car, it just meant that I could give the dealer the service request from USAA to send to their financial people so that USAA would send them the money directly.
It also meant that I needed car insurance, so I spent THREE HOURS on the phone with USAA trying to get insurance. They didn’t like that my partner and I don’t have USA driver’s licenses and after three hours, I had enough, flipped the table, and got insurance from Progressive instead.
USAA is literally a company that specialises in serving the United States military. The US military that sends people overseas for long assignments ALL THE TIME.
But, wait, there’s more.
The money from USAA takes 1-3 business days to arrive in the dealership’s bank account and THEN you get the car.
Except that on day three, USAA instead sent them a fax.
That was garbled.
The dealership asked me to give USAA a call. So I did. They said they couldn’t tell what the fax was that was. sent to the dealership but that it was PROBABLY because the dealership hadn’t followed instructions from USAA correctly and that they submitted the documentation incorrectly and could we please send it again?
Me: “You said ‘maybe’ – could I call them directly to confirm that’s the issue?”
No.
Me: “Could YOU ask them to confirm that’s the problem?”
No.
Fine. So I resubmit the paperwork. Directly. Via my USAA account. And then another super garbled fax arrives at the dealership from USAA.
I flipped the fucking table.
See, cause we’re not closing this week (It’s Complicated) we have all that downpayment money sitting in our checking account, so, I called USAA, cancelled the loan, and wired the money directly into the dealer’s account.
Fuck USAA.
But, wait, there’s more.
I’m looking at another two houses this morning and the dealer calls me laughing #LOLSOB cause he knows our flood house story, “…you’re not going to believe this….”
He says something is wrong with the title and they absolutely CANNOT sell us the car.
But they’ll get me a better one, just come over.
Classic used car bait and switch, eh?
So I head over.
Totally paranoid. TOTALLY on guard.
I get there and sure enough, EXACTLY the same car but only 9k miles AND under every warranty.
For the same price.
“So… what exactly happened with the title?”
Car was a lease.
Leased to a young woman.
The young woman’s father turned it in.
Which makes it complicated.
But then he DIED.
Which means the car CANNOT be sold for YEARS while the death certificate is filed, etc.
Literally Michigan’s Secretary of State’s office called this dealership to say, “NOPE!”
This is the story how I got the same 2018 Ford Escape, with all the same bells and whistles, for a third of the miles, for the same price.
Let’s all hope the universe has something similar in store for our house.