My daughter, who is a single parent, is dealing with CPS (they bought
Mercury finance out).  She has had nothing but heartache and grief
with this company.  Granted, she's had a rough time of if financially
BUT their representatives have called my house and her grandmother's
phone numerous times.  They even went so far as to have the vehicle
repoed when there was an error in their accounting practices.  Of
course, my daughter had to pay to get her car back plus having all of
CD's stolen during the process.  What are her options, besides trading
the hunk of junk in?

CFAB -
I'm sorry your daughter is going through such a difficult time with
her car financing.

While you probably cannot make CPS treat your daughter as a credit
VIP, there are certain legal limitations to what they can legally do,
and knowing those can help us keep CPS within them.  For instance,
privacy laws are fairly strict, and creditors are pretty strongly
prohibited from contacting or disclosing information to third parties
(you and your daughter's grandmother are probably just such third
parties...)

The Federal Reserve Bank has a great website - called a Consumer
Handbook to Credit Protection Laws.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/consumerhdbk/

The same site has a guide to filing complaints -
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/consumerhdbk/complaint.htm

The nolo site (a plain-english law center) also has some very helpful
advice and guidelines for debtors:
http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/index.cfm/catID/734BECB6-ADDE-4041-AEC595AF30EA15CE/subcatid/43A35C36-0A53-4E37-B92C80B98E69E6D0

On that site, there is also a link to a great section outlining "what
to do if a bill collector crosses the line" -
http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/objectID/A2589BA5-F43A-43D4-93F46C72F43DCF45/catID/43A35C36-0A53-4E37-B92C80B98E69E6D0

Once you know your legal rights, you're in better shape to make sure
they're respected. I hope that this helps to keep things bearable,
even if they're not friendly.

asking-ga

I really dont have a comment but I do have a question. I am currently
in the millitary and stationed over seas, I am having trouble with
CPS. Can you do me a favor and give me their contact phone number I
have tried every wich way to get a hold of them but have been
unsucessfull, any help would greatly be appreciated.

i think that people in her situation should be able too stop these
ma@pa finance companies from harrasing and repoe a car because of a
paper glitch thats nuts im in used cars and ive delt with couple of
these companies and they have no right to repoe a car for a paper
glitch thats crazy i sure hope someone in the law dept,can stop these
useless companies from taking advantage of these people it gives
dealers and salespeople bad reps,believe it or not ive never had a
unhappy used car customer thats how i sell and honesty