Briana Bellinger-Dawson was caught off guard when she couldn’t find her car in the parking lot outside of a grocery store last spring.
“I thought my car was stolen, and my heart was racing,” Bellinger-Dawson said. “I usually know exactly where I park. So, I kind of freaked out just a little bit.”
In March of last year, at the start of the pandemic, Bellinger-Dawson discovered that her 2017 Nissan Rogue had been repossessed by the bank.
She said her car payments were more than $600 a month, not including insurance, which increased her bill to over $800.
Bellinger-Dawson was behind on her payments after she said her hours as an art teacher were cut back during the pandemic. But she managed to work out a payment plan with the finance company and got her car back in three days.
“I pulled out all of my emergency funds,” Bellinger-Dawson said.