Yesterday, my aunt went to our house and asked me to accompany her in an agency near our place. At first, I have a second thought of going with her or not because I was really busy that day when she came. Aside from that, I was also confused why she looks so sad. But when my mother heard about my aunt’s request, she asked me to accompany my aunt in wherever she goes, so without any hesitation, I left our house with her.
When we were on our way, I asked her about her purpose in going to a credit repair clinic. She revealed to me that she wanted to get a loan but were afraid that will be denied. Hence, to improve her credit scores, she needs the assistance of this office to fix her credit score. As we arrived at said office, she immediately asked the staffs of that agency what she must do to her credits. The woman informed us about their service of improving anyone credit report in as much as to help the people to get a loan in any loan provider. I looked at my aunt and I can sense that she was satisfied that this company can fix credit to improve her credit ratings.
After thirty minutes of discussing about the simple way of solving my aunt’s problem that regards with credits, she was smiling then. She has no worries at all.
The problem of sticky doors and windows often develops when mobile homes have settled unevenly. Before you try repairs, verify both longitudinal and lateral leveling of your home with a carpenter’s level (page 20). Make any necessary adjustments in the blocking.
Inspect the doors again. Leveling may have corrected some of the problems or it may have created new ones. Open and close all the doors several times. For those which do not close easily, hunt for the cause of the sticking. First try lubricating the hinges; an aerosol will do, with silicone lubricant.
Then look for bent hinges. You can either remove them and try to hammer them straight, or use the old hinge as a template to help you buy new ones.
Stress on the hinges may have stripped the wood that holds the screws. Fill the holes with small pieces of wood such as kitchen matches. Better yet, fill the holes with wood putty. Then reseat the hinge screws.
If you find no fault with hinges, inspect the door itself. You may be able to cure rubs at the top of the door by prying downward with a piece of wood, a hammer, or a broom handle. This warps the hinges, but sometimes that saves a lot of time in sanding. You can use a similar ploy to fix some cases of faulty alignment. Slide something firm but soft (like a man’s wallet) between door and frame near the top or bottom hinge. Try to close the door. Don’t force it shut completely, only enough to spring the hinge. To close a gap on the hinge side of the door, tap the open edge with a hammer.
Beyond these quick-repair hints, the job becomes a carpenter’s problem. With metal doors, rehanging a misaligned door involves shimming up under the hinges. Again, you’d probably do well to hire an expert rather than trying to do this yourself. If you leave the fault go, however, it only grows worse and eventually may ruin the door frame.
Three former employees of a Florida Lincoln-Mercury dealer (from 1989-91) described a “payoff-packing”
scheme that was used to overcharge customers who had leased through Ford Motor Credit. They said that representatives from Ford Credit told them how to inflate customers’ early-payoff amounts, explaining that their Ford Credit branch would “participate” by refusing to give payoff amounts to customers who requested them. Instead, they were told that customers would be referred back to the dealer for payoff information, giving them “an opportunity to make additional profits” by overcharging their customers.
According to a former finance manager, Ford Credit would only reveal payoff amounts to managers who were “approved” by Ford. And dealers were instructed to keep a logbook to record payoff balances that were given to customers, so they wouldn’t be caught giving out differcnt numbers.
Two of the former employees said that Ford Credit representatives used this “payoff-packing opportunity” as a marketing tool to entice dealers to give Ford most (or all) of their leasing business.
Five years later, in California, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office received a complaint of overcharging on a lease payoff by a local Ford dealer. Investigators discovered that Ford Credit had been concealing payoff information from their lease customers, so the investigation was expanded to include all early payoffs that occurred at that one dealer over a one-year period. It was discovered that 31 people had been overcharged.
That 1995 investigation of one Ford dealer quickly spread to include eight Ford dealers in that area. When it was over, five of the dealers were accused of overcharging their customers by inflating the early-payoff amounts on cars and trucks that were leased through Ford Motor Credit. (And the district attorney’s office said they found logbooks that were used to keep track of amounts that were quoted to customers.)
To settle the charges, all five dealers agreed to pay civil penalties (from $2,500 to $87,500 each) and make restitution to affected customers. A total of 111 people were entitled to restitution, with some receiving as much as $2,000. (The Sacramento investigation only covered payoffs that occurred during a 12-month period, which turned up 111 victims.) Similar investigations were then started by district attorneys in other areas.
“Payoff packing” is believed to have been a common practice at a number of Ford and Lincoln-Mercury dealers, since Ford Motor Credit was the only lender to withhold payoff information from its lease customers. (My sources estimate that this scheme was being used by as many as 65-70% of the Ford and Lincoln-Mercury dealers.)
The company stopped concealing lease payoffs in late 1995 after the investigations were started.