[jedberg]

I'm not surprised. I've heard multiple stories from multiple people about Carvana just forgot to collect money from them. They bought a used car, the car showed up, and Carvana just never took the money from them beyond the deposit.

This is not only bad for Carvana and their cash flow, but bad for the buyer too, who just has to keep the money sitting there forever in case Carvana fixes the glitch and tries to transfer the money.

I guess at least if they go bankrupt they can finally assume no one is coming for the cash...

[Booktrope]

Yeah, bankruptcy basically does not let anyone off the hook who owes the bankrupt company or person a debt. But collection is overseen by a court which definitely can mean that efforts to collect debt owed to the bankrupt party can intensify and are unlikely to end until money is collected.

[cameronh90]

Over a decade ago, when I first left home, I bought a bunch of home appliances on finance. They never collected any payments, and a few years later, they went bankrupt. Nobody ever came after me and nothing ever appeared on my credit report.

It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

[FireBeyond]

Same here, although it was bedroom furniture and bed/mattress etc., to the tune of a couple of thousand dollars. Even set up autopay.

Never once charged. Two years later, company was shutdown. Ten years ago now.

[projektfu]

Did they restructure or liquidate?

[grumple]

I'd expect debt instruments to be sold to debtors. Don't count on this.

[jsemrau]

Likely. Running extended collections operations across highly dispersed (low density) population is extremely expensive.

[rodgerd]

> I guess at least if they go bankrupt they can finally assume no one is coming for the cash...

My expectation would be that the liquidator is immediately going to start chasing those people, hard. Carvana may not be competent to organise collecting monies owed, but the folks managing bankruptcy? Hell no.

[Waterluvian]

Bankruptcy companies are like Star Wars backwater scrapyards. Might not seem sexy or high profile but man do they know how to strip a company down quickly and effectively.

[rodgerd]

If anything, they'll err in the other direction when chasing unpaid money: people won't be getting a free car because the recordkeeping and collections were a mess, people are going to be fighting with debt collectors over having paid their bills, but Carvana being a mess means that the debt collector will have no evidence of that.

[adrr]

They could always get in writing that they don’t owe Carvana any money and it will be very hard to collect as a debt.

[bombcar]

Even if you don’t get it in writing you can ALWAYS contest and demand proof from whoever the liquidator sold to - I personally would consider it pretty unethical to try to get out of a valid debt that you intentionally took on but it’s a tactic that is known to work and screw the usurers anyway.

Often the paperwork has been misplaced or lost.

[Skates1616]

You will need a title to the car if you ever want to get rid of it, it’s even needed at a junk yard.

You won’t get a title without making the payments…

[jjav]

You don't necessarily always need a title, just write a Bill of Sale to the buyer. This is fairly common particularly with older cars or cars that have been converted to racecars (but still quite street-legal).