Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

Re: debt

The fact that the loan is on a commercial vehicle, even though it sounds like you and your wife took out the loan, probably remove it from the protections given to consumer credit transactions. Those types of protections would include making it a violation of the law for them to communicate details of your account to a third-party, making threats, etc...

As far as having made the threat to report the truck stolen, and to have you arrested, there are a couple of issues here. First, the truck cannot be considered stolen unless and until they take steps to repossess the truck and you fail to return it. Second, in California it is illegal to threaten criminal prosecution in an effort to get something you want (money, etc...). It falls along the lines of blackmail. That being said, being in the right on this issue isn't going to help save the truck. You need to contact the lender, communicate with them and work something out. Alternatively, if you are just not in a position to do so, then contact the lender and arrange a voluntary surrender of the truck. You cannot keep the truck and not pay them, so something has to be done to resolve that situation. You can use the violation described above as leverage, but its not going to solve your problem.

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