Ooops, I Did It Again!

Yes I did it, I did it . . . I did it, alright . . . with malice of forethought I did it. I’ve done it before and by gosh I’ll do it again . . . I paid off another bill!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I paid off my truck last night, after work.

It all started a few weeks ago when I was trying to get an answer to two key questions, for my budget:

1) What would the amount needed to pay the loan out on October 7 (Payday)

2) How exactly do you actually pay a car loan off early?

Being as I have usually either traded in a vehicle for another before the loan is paid off (not advisable) or just let them run their course until paid off, I wasn’t sure on these two key details.

Okay, so they answered #2 fine: bank draft made out to the bank that holds the car loan, in the amount needed to pay it out, and on the memo line put the account number of the actual loan.

As always, if you are about to pay a loan off, check with your bank and see what YOU actually need to do to pay off YOUR loan. Always double check your facts and never take my (or anyone’s) advice as the truth, make sure.

Back to paying the truck off, at first they said that they couldn’t give me an answer because it wasn’t October yet. There was a glitch in the system that wouldn’t tell them what it was unless we were in the same month as they pay out date.

Fine, so I called on the 1st after the whole winterizing thing. They said they couldn’t tell me because it wasn’t a business day (another glitch in the system).

So, I called yesterday during coffee break at work and they said that they could only tell me the buyout amount for today.

Stellar staff and computer system at this bank, I am thankful that it is not my main bank. I was so frustrated that I decided just to go down to the nearest branch of this bank and talk to someone in person.

Then it twinged . . . if I was going down there, why not just pay it off today. I had enough cash in my accounts, all told, sure it would dip me into my personal overdraft, but this is what it is there for.

So down I went and double checked with the teller what to do and exactly the amount. There happened to be a branch of my main bank across the street. So, over I walked, got the bank draft and returned.

Not long after that I walked out with receipt in hand. The truck is paid off, so that’s that, right? Wrong!

There are three things that need to happen to close this off, so I need to be vigilant and stay on top of them to make sure that they happen.

The first thing is that the bank needs to send me a letter saying that the loan is actually paid off and they are happy (as happy as banks get).

The second thing that needs to happen is that those automatic payments pulling the truck payments out of my account need to stop.

It may come as a shock that while banks are fantastically efficient in STARTING to pull money out of your account, they can be a little slow to STOP pulling money out of your account.

I will stay on this, and phone this bank next week. The next payment isn’t due until the 15th so there is a bit of time.

I really don’t want to have to wait six weeks in processing and so forth for them to mail me a cheque, thank you very much.

I will talk to my bank on payday to see if they can put a stop to those automatic payments. I will bring in my receipt as proof of payment so it doesn’t look like I am trying to pull a fast one.

The last thing that needs to happen, is that lien on the tuck needs to be removed. The bank that the truck loan was with has a hold on the truck for the amount of that truck loan.

With it, they can repossess the truck if they want (Highly unlikely and would be a media fiasco if they did, trust me).

The main reason for concern is that I can’t sell this truck or use it as collateral in another loan until that lien is removed. 

Typically these things happen automatically and are done by the bank, but I need to be aware of them and stay on top of things and ensure that they are done. If I don’t, it could hurt me in the future.

As always: Keep your head up, your attitude positive and keep moving forward!