Problems getting vehicle transported

I think your only options are to pay it off or sell it before you move as you do not yet have clear title to the vehicle.

It doesn't seem right. I am still fighting with them. I even offered to fax them a copy of the lease agreement for the property we are renting.

There is one other option. Get another loan with a company that will allow you to transport to stx.

This also happens to people who leave from here and find the local banks with whom they got their loan will not let them transport to stateside. Just another reason I've kept my stateside bank.

The best option would be to pay it off. The less debt you have living here the better off you will be able to afford living here.

This is nothing new. Many US mainland based lenders (most likely the majority) of the auto finance companies will not let you take a vehicle from the mainland regardless of your payment history. This policy is not aimed at you but rather takes into account many factors such as the company not being registered to do business in the USVI's, the difficulties they might have collecting past due payments from someone living in the USVI's or repossessing the vehicle should a borrower default on the payments. It's a matter of the finance company merely trying to protect its investment.

I doubt you'll have any luck at all trying to get them to change their position. Your only option is to payoff the existing loan. You do that by using your savings, refinancing with a company authorized to do business in the USVI's or by selling the vehicle and payng off the loan with the proceeds from the sale.

I am looking at taking a cash advance on a cc to pay the jeep off and call it collateral damage. I do not want to sell my jeep, as it is an awesome vehicle and the first that I actually got what I wanted and not what I had to settle for, or what was practical for kids.

If that is your financial strategy and your vehicle matters so much to you that you're willing to ignore common sense, I predict you will have a very difficult time making ends meet here, so be sure you have a return ticket set aside for when you give up, disgusted and broke, and want to leave.

dntw,

I was extreamely frustrated yesterday. Sometimes I just need to vent, step back and take another look at the situation. It is a frustrating situation at best. My husband and I have planned this move for well over a year. I intend to be successful on the island. I am concerned about the move and want thngs to go as smoothly as possible. However, I do not have blinders on and think the pot of gold is at the end of the Pier in F'Sted by any stretch of the imagination. :S

join Pentagon Federal Credit Union....penfed.org

They allow you to bring a car loan to the VI

Option one...you can refinance your personal vehicle with their used vehicle loan as long as you take $5k out as cash (extra set-up money)

Option two....if you have good enough credit and are organized enough not to miss a payment...open up a platinum credit card and do a balance transfer...their promotional rate (till the end of June) is 2.99% for the life of the balance with the transfer fee capped at $100.

Don't use your credit card, usually you can get a much better interest rate on a personal loan. Cash advances on cc have a horrible interest rate. And with the personal loan you can't charge anything thing else to it. 🙂 Think of this as your first island test. Your patience will be tested many many times in the first year. When they are remember the things you like about the island and will this problem really be that important 3 months from now. So many things here are ridicilous that you really have to pick your battles and no point in getting upset about something you can't do anything about.

I( am assuming that you know the expense of getting a car down to the islands. Forgetting the land transportation to Miami the cost with registering and shipping will be about 3500. Call Tropical shipping and they can give you a quote on the shipping. Then call the VI IRS and they will tell you what you will also need to pay in road tax and registration as well as import duty..

Good luck!

billd

I live in South Florida and have Don from VI Cargo transporting for me. I am just hoping to get it all worked out. I should find out today.

Glad to hear you're not going the cash advance route! Try some of the alternatives suggested in this thread and if you can't make any of these arrangements work, consider selling your vehicle and buying a car when you get here. You may be surprised to find that what you drive matters much less here. Good luck with the move!

Betty wrote: "Cash advances on cc have a horrible interest rate."

Unless you have excellent credit, in which case you can sometimes get a better rate than you can for a car loan -- and then it's unsecured debt!

BTDT. 🙂

You can get a credit card with good interest rate but all of them have like a 20% interest rate on cash advances in their fine print. So I strongly recommend you avoid it or at least call and confirm the interest rate before you do that. We have excellent credit that we worked hard to fix when we first got married. But the cash advances are somthing totally different, stick with the unsecure personal loan. But you'll need good credit for that too. 😉

I wholeheartedly agree with shipping your working vehicle if there is anyway to do it... we have had so much bad luck with island cars, and we went broke trying to get our one "good" vehicle from Caribbean Auto mart fixed (it started stalling the day after we bought it and no one ever figured out why)

Yeah, you won't care what you vehilce looks like here, but you will care that it works.

If I had it to do over again, I would have done whatever it took to get the working, reliable vehicle that we had in the states down here, regardless of higher interest payments, borrowing from mom and dad or whatever. A lot of people say to not ship your car, but it is hell getting a reliable vehicle here.

Hello Beth,

I am getting a lot of mixed signals! However, I can tell you it is hell SHIPPING a great vehicle to STX. I am still working on it. Another all day ordeal.

@Betty -- for someone with good credit, there are still deals to be found, especially as interest rates are lower than ever. Yes, even on credit card cash advances.

I bought my last car that way for a 6% interest rate (actually, it was 0% for 18 months first). It's not an option for everyone, but it's a strategy most people never think about. For anyone interested in trying this, check out your credit card company's special offers, and definitely read the fine print. I would do it in a heartbeat if I were in the OP's situation.

What does a special offer have to do with a cash advance? I'm confused by what you're trying to say. A cash advance is when you are pulling cash directly from the credit card and the cc company's will charge a higher interest rate for it. What you're talking about is buying a product on the credit card the way they are intended to be used or you could say you had a separate loan with a lower interest then your normal credit card.

Lots of 0% interest rates out there right now. Did you guys here about Chrysler dealers? Something about they have to sell off all their cars in the next five days or they get nothing. Said rates are already slashed 40% today.

Wow, if thats true,doesn`t Chrysler sell the jeep line??
Does the 40% include used cars?
Ah, gas is going up again, I`ll stick to my 1.8 engine that flys up donkey hill!
The A/C is so cool, you could hang raw meat in it!

Betty, where did you hear the news about chrysler? I've been looking but can't find anything.

CNN yesterday morning, should be on their website.

I think that may be the dealers they are forcing to shut down, not all dealers.
Here in Phx they are shutting down 3 or 4 dealers.
GM is going to do the same thing. Several Gm dealers have already received letters stating that they will be losing their franchise.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/06/02/dealership.closing/index.html

Correct, they said 800 are closing. Should be one near enough to everyone stateside.

Went to one of the Chrysler dealer that is closing here in AZ. Thought we might get a good deal on a new PT Cruiser as we love the one we have.
On the cheaper cars $18K like that, they were only offering 20% off. No great deal IMHO. On the higher end vehicles $40K they were offering up to 40% off.
The salesman told me that they had only a few more days to sell the cars as new TO COLLECT THEIR FACTORY REBATES. After that they could not collect them. The said the owner of the dealership would either buy the cars himself and the dealership would collect the rebates and they sell them as new but second owner, technically used, or take them to the auto auction where as new they would bring almost top dollar.

we didn't buy anything.