“I told them two weeks ago…”
A woman is outraged because the credit union that holds the loan on her totaled BMW demanded payment before the insurance check cleared. She may have expected sympathy. That’s not what she got.
TikTok creator Nikki (@nikkisfun4all) says she was in an accident in her BMW about a month and a half ago. She posted a video on October 17 about the situation with her credit union. “So how about some dude from the credit union that I got a loan from for my four-seater BMW that got totaled called me?” she says to start the video.
Nikki initially thought the call was going to be about confirming the payoff or processing details. Instead, the credit union was calling her about her payment. “I told them two weeks ago that I’m not paying it because it got totaled and they’re gonna get paid,” she says. “And he’s like, ‘Yeah, we haven’t received your payment.’”
The request didn’t sit well with Nikki. “I’m like, ‘It should be noted on the file that it’s getting totaled,’” she says. “‘I called you twice to tell you. I also told somebody when they called me, as well as you guys have had communication with State Farm.’ Meanwhile, it took them two weeks to process the payoff quote to State Farm.”
The credit union rep asked if Nikki has GAP insurance and she confirmed she does. “The loan should be satisfied by the third-party insurance as well as my insurance,” she says she told him. “And he was like, ‘Oh, OK, well it’s totally up to you if you want to [make your payment]. It’s going to negatively affect your credit report, because it’s going to be past due a certain amount of days.’”
Nikki says, “I said, ‘Sir, respectfully, it is totaled. Why would I put money on that totaled loan? Go ahead and repo it. I do not care.’”
She concludes the video by saying, “That’s what’s wrong with corporate America. They can’t see this is a situation where you need to actually be a human and put something in the computer. We’re just going to put a negative mark on this person’s made up credit score. Because credit scores are made up.”
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In the caption, she writes, “Like [be for real]. This has been a nightmare, and you wanna squeeze $700 out of me for a payment you’re gonna get within the next week?”
When an insurance company declares a vehicle totaled, that means the vehicle is not worth repairing compared to its value. If the owner of the vehicle still has an outstanding loan on the vehicle, the insurance company determines the actual cash value of the vehicle and sends the lienholder a check for that amount minus the driver’s deductible.
GAP insurance is another coverage that helps drivers bridge the gap between the actual cash value of their vehicle and the amount still outstanding on their loan. In this situation, it sounds like Nikki’s insurance and the other party’s insurance will cover the full amount of the loan.
Unfortunately, as the commenters said, that doesn’t exempt Nikki from her responsibility for the payments due while the check is in the mail. About a year ago, a driver posted to Reddit’s r/insurance asking what to do in a similar situation.
“Whatever you do, don’t stop paying back to the lender,” wrote one person in the comments. “Call your insurance and ask them what you should do next. Assuming you have GAP insurance, contact them too if it’s a different insurer.”
But the redditor was concerned that the payments would be somehow wasted once the lienholder received the insurance check. “Any payments made out of pocket after that time would be returned to you,” said another person.
In the comments section, viewers were not on Nikki’s side regarding the situation with her BMW loan.
One viewer wrote, “You still have to make the payment. This is your fault.”
“Comments didn’t go as planned,” said a second person. “They are right. You have to make payments until it’s repaid by the insurance company.”
“You signed a legal contract to make all the payments until the loan is paid,” explained a third person. “Even if wrecked and totaled, you are responsible for all payments each month until the check is sent to the lienholder. Now you should make sure the insurance knows that you are paying, especially if you have a deductible, because your payment may cover that deductible or some of it, thus a bigger payout to the bank.”
Motor1 contacted Nikki via TikTok comment and direct message for comment. This post will be updated if she responds.
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