CarCredit is a Buy Here, Pay Here dealership specializing in selling cars to people with bad credit or no credit. I am not familiar with this particular dealership, but this is how Buy here, Pay Here dealers in general make money:
They price cars way above market value, and their buyers are in no position to shop around. If a car is worth 10,000 according to Edmunds or Kelly Blue Book, but the dealer sells it as "$3,000 down payment plus $500 per month" or similar, an inexperienced or desperate buyer will likely not notice that that they're paying $15,000 plus a high interest rate.
"Worst case scenario" where the buyer doesn't make the payment, the dealer repossesses the car and re-sells it at an inflated price again - but keeps the down payment and the payments at a high interest rate.
Some of the worst dealers also make it quite hard to make payments for people with limited resources and crazy schedules; or to redeem the car if it's repossessed. I have no idea if this one resorts to that.
So this buyer clearly defaulted on their payment, which is not good. But they paid $3,000 down plus $1,600 for a total of $4600, while CarCredit has the $4,600 and the car, with only some small expenses - fronting the real cost of the car and repossessing it. Buy Here Pay Here is a highly profitable business.
Here is what I would like to see happen:
CarCredit show proof of:
What they paid for the car. (Was the sales price to the claimant a reasonable mark-up?)
What they paid to repossess it.
What they sold it for after repossession.
In my opinion the claimant should be refunded the difference between what she has paid and what the costs (essentially a rental) plus a reasonable markup were to the dealer. Likely that would be the $3,000 down payment.
I highly recommend that the claimant ask for help from the state's Attorney General and local news reporters. Yes, the claimant was a risky bet for financing, and defaulted at least temporarily. But this is why the poor stay poor - $4,600 for what amounts to a four month rental is quite a markup.