What's In Your Glovebox?

Pah-lease! Never, never, never, never, never, never, never keep your car purchase documents in your car.  Why you ask?  You're thinking that is the most logical place to keep your documents.  Car documents go in a car's glove compartment, right?  That's easy to remember.  They'll never be lost.

I cannot tell you (well, I'm going to tell you) how many times I get a call from a victim of auto fraud who can't bring me their purchase documents - critical to evaluating a case - because...

• the car was repossessed and returned without the documents,
• the car was taken back to the dealer for repair and the documents just disappeared,
• the car was towed and - you guessed it - came back without the documents (or any other personal property).

And now you're thinking to yourself, "that will never happen to me."  Oh, but it might. You don't plan to be a victim of auto fraud, or buy a lemon, or end up with your car towed. Nobody does.  Still, almost every week I get a call from someone who has a story to tell me but no purchase documents. Not an impossible case to evaluate, but much harder.

And, no, the dealer - you know, the one that just ripped you off - isn't going to cooperate and give you a copy.  You can get a copy of the sales contract and the credit application from your lender, but there are a lot of other documents that you signed that the lender never gets.

So, pah-lease, it is so simple to store your car's purchase documents in your house, in a box, in a closet, in a file cabinet, at the back of your baby's dressing table, under your dog's food mat, buried in the backyard, anywhere but in the car.

You can thank me later.

Alicia L. Hinton, Esq.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops.

Law Office of A.L. Hinton
www.alhintonlaw.com
​(559) 328-4800

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