Posted on

Myths and Reality of Guaranteed Car Finance

Guaranteed car finance companies have helped thousands of customers who have different past credit problems to finance the purchase of a new or used car. Some people need guaranteed car finance simply because they have no credit history. So, thank goodness for guaranteed car finance arrangements whereby you can find a car you like and drive it out of the showroom within minutes, right? Maybe not. You might want to look a little closer before signing those papers…
Rates
As usual, the rate you are offered will depend upon your credit history. If your credit history is bleak at best, then you can bet your quote will include an interest rate that is sky high upon “approval”, and be careful with that as well, because the rate advertised is not always the rate you will get. I’ve heard of some guaranteed car finance companies coming back with an interest rate as high as 15% and higher! That’s like credit card interest on a larger principal amount. Car finance rates are determined by the percentage or cost added onto the loan by the lender and the dealers get paid a commission on higher purchase deals and will try to charge a rate that is more beneficial to them, and not you.
Payments
Once you have the purchase price of your automobile and are working with the interest rates, be sure to figure the total monthly payment that you will be paying, and determine if it will work with your monthly budget. Remember that just because you may have a good purchase price and acceptable interest rate, if the monthly payments are too much for you to handle comfortably for a number of years, it may be best to pass. Also, if the payments do seem to be too high, don’t let the dealer talk you in to stretching out the financing for years and years. Remember that a car loses 60-70% of it value in the first two years. So if you sign into a loan for 7-8 years, you may still be paying for the car when it is a heap!
I understand that your credit record may not be perfect at all stages in your life, many things can happen to leave you with a bad credit history. If you do not have the savings and cannot borrow from friends or relatives, you will have to face the possibility of applying for a car finance loan and are likely to find it more difficult to obtain approved car finance with a bad credit history: difficult, but not impossible.
Bottom line, anything that claims to be “Guaranteed Finance” or “Bad Credit No Problem” is likely to be out to devour your bank account. My suggestion is to save a little money, and buy a car with cash. It may not be the sports car you’ve always dreamed of, but it will get you from point A to point B until you have a chance to repair your credit, and save up some money to buy that sports car. If you cannot wait and simply must get a guaranteed car finance loan, be careful, shop several different places, and go with the best proposal.

Get more great finance and investing tips at Jeffry Evans’ personal finance blog. Guaranteed Car Finance Fact or Fiction is just one of many great articles you will find at Personal Finance Resources.

Posted on

Poker Myths: Guaranteed Prize Pools

Catching an overlay on a major poker site for a guaranteed tournament online is like catching a one outer in poker, it almost impossible. I mean it is a great marketing tool to promote tournaments and such, you get the average poker player, or players to see “$10+1 buy-in, $5,000 prize pool guaranteed” and decide to play based on perceived incentive of the $5,000, like they are getting a really big sale at a department store. This is without a doubt one of my biggest pet peeves in poker. An overlay for you who do not know, is an amount of money the site has to pay because the guarantee was not met. For example, if the guarantee is $5,000 and $4,000 worth of entrants are in the tournament the site is forced to cough up (pay) for the addition $1,000 out of their own pocket, essentially costing them money.

Now with these guaranteed prize pools, they usually attract a certain number of players required to make up the guarantee (minus the rake), this also is further helped out by the time of day, week or month and the volume of players they expect on the site. And they even have the stones to keep registration open long enough to meet the guarantee lots of the time, in case they do not get there, this was before they introduced late registration well into the first level. In essence this helps them make there quota (number of entrants, amount of profit from rake, etc…) giving them a reason to run the current tournament.

I cannot even count the number of times I have glanced at a tournament about 30 minutes to an hour before it begins and I say, there is no way they are going to make the guarantee, and sure enough somehow, someway, they make it! And I will tell you what the players (like me) are thinking, hmmm look at that tournament it is going to start in 5 minutes and there is no chance it is going to make the guarantee so I will sign up. You fall right into the trap! And every other person on the site is thinking the same thing that you are! And there is a mad scramble to get into the tournament and you cannot believe how quickly it fills up when it looks like the site might have to pay an overlay.

My point is, if your playing a tournament, do not play it for the guarantee. The payouts are the same as if there was no guarantee. Playing a 9 man Sit-N-Go tournament at $10+1 each the prize pool is $90, and what is guaranteed is that you pay for what you get.

http://theaveragepokerplayer.blogspot.com/

I will be writing a semi-daily blog about the going ons in the poker world, that will reach a wide variety of topics/ideas.