I have posted before about a car being taken. Well I reported it to the local police and they said that it was stolen and passed the case onto the prosecuting attorney. Well after almost 3 months the prosecutor said that it is a civil matter that it is an illegal repossesion. I called the court house and they said that for something like this I would have to have an attorney. Well I can not afford an attorney. Does anyone know what else I can do? This happened in Missouri and the car is now in IL. The IL. police said if it happened there they would have had it back the same day. So why can't my local police do the same?
2007-05-11 05:29:30 · 3 answers · asked by mom 1 in Politics & Government ➔ Law & Ethics
There was no lein at all on the vehicle the police seen the title and all of the paper work.
2007-05-11 06:04:05 · update #1
different laws
2007-05-11 05:33:47 · answer #1 · answered by skcs11 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Sounds like the old law enforcement standby "its a civil case and we have no authority to pursue it" story. If your car was taken and you were not the subject of a repossession then it was stolen. Even if in error, if the lien-holder orders a repossession action, the company that actually snagged the car is hard to prosecute. If this was the case, I would say that your local police are probably right in that you can probably attain more results from civil action. There are a lot of attorneys that take cases on contingency, so find one that will and sue the lien holder for the car, lost wages, defamation of character, alternate transportation expenses and anything else the attorney can think of to add to the list. He'll propose a settlement in the thousands of dollars range, and if they are actually at fault and ignored your previous attempts to have your property returned (which I hope you documented when and who you talked with and the results of those conversations) and you can prove that you have been compliant with the terms of the security agreement and loan, they'll want to settle and end this fast, before they get a lot of bad press. They are probably in violation of at least the fair credit collections act and who knows what all else that they could end up facing fines from the FTC as well, if they let this issue continue. Good Luck!
2007-05-11 05:47:17 · answer #2 · answered by Jim 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Money, money, money. We have the best justice system money can buy.
2007-05-11 05:41:34 · answer #3 · answered by acmeraven 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋