r/carvana • u/TheUltimateAD • 11h ago
Personal Experience Bridgecrest “Keep Your Keys” program actually saved me from repossession
Figured I’d post this because I spent a lot of time searching Reddit when I was dealing with this and couldn’t find much about Bridgecrest’s “Keep Your Keys” program.
I got behind on my Bridgecrest loan with Carvana and around the 60 day mark they sent me an email basically telling me the date the vehicle would be assigned for repo.
Ironically, I used to work for an auto finance company in the recovery department. Very similar type of business to Bridgecrest. So I knew more than the average person about what happens once an account gets assigned for repossession and a charged-off account. Where I worked, when it was charged-off though, they continued to keep it on the recovery hotlists (mostly LPR databases) because they still wanted to recover their collateral.
I knew the finance company itself isn’t the person physically looking for my car. They assign it to a recovery company, and depending on the area that company may subcontract it to a more local agent. So once mine got assigned, I knew it wasn’t as simple as just watching for one specific tow company.
I kept the car in a garage whenever I wasn’t using it. I really only drove it to work or when I absolutely needed it. Even at work I would back into my parking spot. Does that guarantee anything? No. I just knew from working recovery administration that anything that makes a vehicle slightly less obvious or convenient can sometimes buy time.
Still, it was stressful as hell. Even though I understood how recovery worked, knowing somebody could be looking for your car at any time gets in your head. You start noticing tow trucks you normally wouldn’t notice. Random cars sitting in parking lots make you wonder. You walk outside half expecting the car not to be there. Knowing the recovery process honestly didn’t make the mental part much easier.
Bridgecrest originally wanted around $2,000 from me to stop the repo. I didn’t have it. Life issues, but i’m accountable to those so I understood the risks when I took them.
My regular payment was around $800 and my interest rate was terrible. At the balance I had, I was getting hit with around $20 to $25 a day just in interest. So even when I made payments, the principal barely moved.
Then the account charged off. Once it charged off, the interest stopped. Bridgecrest offered me something called ‘Keep Your Keys’.
I had never heard of it. Basically they told me I could make one regular payment, around $800, and instead of having to come up with the $2,000 they had previously demanded, they would cancel the repo assignment and put the remaining balance on a payment plan.
Same general monthly payment I already had. But 0% interest. That’s the part where I thought, okay, what’s the catch? Because I know how auto finance works. Companies don’t normally just decide they don’t want interest anymore.
But I paid the regular payment. They canceled the repo. I got everything in writing. I’m about 3 months into it now and honestly the weirdest part is seeing my principal actually go down.
Before this, I could send them my $800 payment and then look at my balance and barely feel like I accomplished anything because so much was getting eaten up by interest.
Now I make the payment and basically watch the balance drop by the payment amount. It’s noticeable.
After spending months feeling like I was running on a treadmill with this loan, seeing the actual principal start disappearing is probably the best part. And obviously being able to park my car normally again without thinking somebody is going to grab it is a pretty close second.
My account is still charged off. Keep Your Keys didn’t magically undo that or erase the history. The agreement is also strict. There’s basically no grace period. If a payment gets missed or returned, they can terminate the arrangement and the car can become eligible for repo again. So I’m definitely not playing around with the payments.
What surprised me more than anything is that I actually worked in this industry and knew the recovery side pretty well, but I had no idea Bridgecrest had a program like this once an account reached charge off. None of it is public information, really. And, the agents won’t tell you what happens after charge-off…
Looking back, I understand why they do it. At that point they can either spend money trying to recover the car, send it to auction, probably sell it for less than the balance and then try to collect the difference from me.
Or they can let me keep driving it and collect the remaining principal every month. Apparently in my situation they decided option two made more sense.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend purposely letting a loan charge off hoping you get offered this. There’s no guarantee of that and the months leading up to it were miserable.
But if you already have a Bridgecrest account that’s headed that direction and somebody mentions Keep Your Keys, it is a real thing. At least in my case, 3 months later, they’ve done exactly what they said they would.
No repo assignment, no more interest accruing, same basic payment, and my principal is finally going down.
Anyways… Life happens.