Never really heard of Carmax no, I'll look into it.
So, pretty fucking terrible day to weird day.
Went to Vegas, went to TitleMax and got both the signed testimony of events from the guys who worked there, then headed to my Lawyers office. Waited in the lobby a half an hour or so and then went in to see him. Walked through all events with him and showed him all of my paperwork, 84 pages of it (he had me skip going over each text for now, just asking me to show him ones I thought relevant to events). At the end he went "So, my first question is, why haven't you just given her the $350 she asked for Friday?"
Pretty much floored me, like deer in headlights. I went "Uhh I... Uhhh why.. why would I do that? Whats to stop her from just saying "Ok, now give me another 200 and I'll really give you the title"?"
And he goes, "Well, yeah, that's definitely one way it could go, but still, even then, your out a lot less money than going to court. Let me explain, You definitely have a case against them, you have done a great job of organizing all of this, I have no doubt you would win, and you probably also have a case against TitleMax since they are a business and had no place getting involved. So, here's the way this will go down. You will take her to court, and it will cost you at least... $3000 lets say. She won't show up. The judge will issue an order for the DMV to transfer the title to you and that will be that. You are out $3000ish dollars. If you then take her to court for that, you accrue more fee's, and while you will probably win that, you will be out of pocket, lets say $6000, with the judge ordering her to pay you that money back. She will never pay it back, and you will either have to take her back to court for it, which will ultimately probably not benefit you in any way, or you will just come to terms that you are out that money. If this was a $60,000 car, you would have a case, a great one, but for an $8,0000 dollar one, it's too much money for it to be handled easily in small claims, but not enough for anyone to really bother much with. Don't get me wrong, I will take your case if thats what you want to do, but my advice would be to first give her the $350 and see if that fixes everything."
So, I was pretty much just feeling like I got shot in the stomach. I asked if he would mind calling her, and just saying who he was and maybe we could work it out that way. I said, if I had to I will pay the other 350 just to be done, I was just worried about the actual meeting. He suggested we meet there at his law firm, or at the metro police dept, I agreed. He called her and got no answer. I tried on my cell and same thing.
He said this is really the worst time for him, as he is leaving the country on vacation tomorrow for 12 days, but if I want to talk to another firm here's one he recommends, and gave me another number. If I wanted to try paying them and contacting him when he gets back that would work too.
He gave me all my stuff back, and wished me well.
I went out and sat in my car for like 45 minutes, alternating between being super mad at everything, and being super depressed. I may have teared up a couple times, but mainly I was just talking to myself about how fucking useless our entire legal system is.
After I collected myself I called the girl, no answer. I called the boyfriend, no answer. I sent them both the following text - I am in Vegas now. What do we have to do to get this taken care of today?
I sat in my car and waited 30 minutes. Nothing.
I went to Fry's Electronics to pick up a POE Switch I need for work tomorrow, and then I went to town square and had sushi for lunch just killing time.
I tried calling both again with no answers. After 4 hours of waiting I headed home.
The entire drive back from vegas was me ranting out loud, while pretty much thinking I might need to pull over and throw up at any time, (on a side note, these past couple of weeks are probably the first time in my life I have really understood the term stress meaning more than just "tired", I could not handle a high stress life I've determined.
I pulled into my driveway and my phone rang. I picked it up and it was my wife, I was in her reliable car for the Vegas trip, and she was in my terrible car, and she was stuck at work, it wasn't starting. I drove back to her work, jumped the car, and told her it was an awful day and I just wanted to go home. We traded cars and she took hers to get the kids, while I took mine home. I left my phone hooked to her car, as it was streaming pandora through the aux.
So I came home and wasn't even going to post, I just felt so fucking defeated. I feel like I fucked up right at the start, and since then have been doing everything right to try to resolve it, but it just doesn't matter.
My wife just got home with the kids and I went out to get my soda/fry's stuff/and phone from her car and I see the blue light flashing on my phone. I turn on the screen and there is a text from the girl that says "I sent the title in the mail to the return address on the envelope you sent the plates in". I had written my work address on that, which is totally fine. Totally fantastic if thats real. I can't think of any reason she would say that except that she either got scared (maybe caller id on the law firm?) or she got annoyed over the whole thing and just said fuck it.
Either way. Fuck yes. I just sent back "I don't know what to say except sorry this got so out of control, thank you."
Man. I'm shaking, I mean, I've been shaking like all day, but man, if thats it, and it's done, holy shit. Please let that be it.