Ugly Duckling - Drivetime ripoff Phoenix Arizona

I bought a 1989 Ford Tauras in Phoenix, AZ in 1997 for about $5800. I had the car for approximately one year making payments and without too many complaints. I became ill in 1998 and consequently am now on disability.

When I got sick and began having trouble with my payments, they would "appear" to work with me, never telling me they were adding an $8.00 fee every time they "helped" me. This would always cause me to go right back into a delinquent status the day after I made the payment. (One of their employees actually confided to me that they were specifically told duriing training NOT to tell customers of this fee.)

Then their collection people began getting nasty, going so far as to call my son who was in another state and tell him they'd been trying to reach me for days and noone seemed to know where I was. Knowing I was ill, this of course scared my son "to death". Truth be told, they'd have just spoken to me that same day. They called my home and told another son what a degenerate and deadbeat his mother was and that they knew for a fact I wasn't really sick.

They even sent a tow truck to sit in front of my home for about an hour one evening. After that, my daughter returned the car to the company for me. Then we went through about a month of calls from them being very nice and trying to get me to take back the car. I had no income at this point but they didn't seem to understand that.

I never heard from them after that time. Until now. Now I'm being told that a collection agency has my account and they want (give or take) $4300. They also tell me the car sold at auction for an amount greater than the balance on my loan at the time. When I asked for verification of the debt, I received two copies of my original contract. No documentation of the payments I made before becoming ill, no mention of the price brought at auction.

I'm obviously going to fight this because I honestly do NOT believe I owe DriveTime any money! Not only that, if there had been a balance after the auction, why wasn't I notified back then?? What I'm wondering now is if anyone knows of a class action suit against this company for these type reasons.

Jo
Cleveland, Ohio
U.S.A.