AUTO FINANCE USA, LLC v. CHANNEL LATRICE MANUEL

Let’s just cut to the chase: a woman in Oklahoma owes $10,751.52—over ten grand—because she stopped paying for a used 2016 Kia Soul, and now a finance company is chasing her with the full weight of the legal system, complete with 20.94% interest like it’s a payday loan from the seventh circle of financial hell. Yes, you read that right—20.94%. That’s not a typo. That’s the kind of interest rate that makes credit card debt look like a friendly favor from your grandma.

So who are these people? On one side, we’ve got Auto Finance USA, LLC—a name that sounds like a company created in a spreadsheet by someone who really loves capitalism and really hates lowercase letters. They’re not the original car seller, but rather the assignee, which is legalese for “we bought the debt from someone else and now we get to sue for it.” They’re represented by the law firm Robinson, Hoover & Fudge, PLLC, which honestly sounds like a 1940s detective agency or a vaudeville act. Their lead attorney? Hugh H. Fudge. Yes. Hugh Fudge. We’re not making this up. If you’re going to be the guy who sues people over car loans, “Hugh Fudge” is the perfect name—because at some point, someone’s going to say, “This whole thing is a Hugh Fudge job,” and the universe will wink.

On the other side: Channel Latrice Manuel. A real person, presumably with a life, a job, maybe a family, and definitely a very unfortunate experience with a used Kia Soul. We don’t know much about her from the filing—no backstory, no explanation, no dramatic tale of mechanical failure or sudden unemployment. Just the cold, hard facts: she bought a car, she stopped paying, and now she’s on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

Here’s how this all went down, according to the petition. On October 18, 2024—so, not even a full year ago—Channel signed a contract to buy that 2016 Kia Soul from a company called The Key, LLC, doing business as The Key Cars. That’s the kind of name that makes you wonder if the dealership is run by a guy named Key who wears a giant foam key on his head and yells “TURN THE KEY TO SAVINGS!” in local commercials. But fine. She bought the car. Presumably drove it. Maybe loved it. Maybe hated it. Maybe it broke down. We don’t know. What we do know is that at some point, she stopped making payments. That’s called defaulting—when you agree to pay for something over time and then, uh, don’t.

When that happens, the lender has options. They can repossess the car. And they did. The filing says the motor vehicle was “recovered,” which sounds way more dramatic than “we towed it from her driveway.” Then they sold it—probably at auction, likely for less than what she still owed. That’s usually how this works. Used cars depreciate, loans have interest, and by the time repossession happens, the math rarely works out in the borrower’s favor.

And it didn’t here. After they sold the Kia Soul (RIP, little guy), they applied the sale proceeds to what Channel still owed. But it wasn’t enough. There was a deficiency balance—fancy legal term for “you still owe money even though we took the car back.” That balance? $10,751.04 in principal. Plus interest—$826.48 of it, accrued at the contractual rate of 20.94% per year from September 2025 to January 2026. Let that sink in. The interest alone on what she still owes is over 20%. For context, the average credit card interest rate is around 25%—but that’s unsecured debt. This was a secured loan, backed by an actual car. And yet, the interest rate is still that high. That’s either predatory, or the risk profile was extremely spicy, or—more likely—this was a buy-here-pay-here lot with “flexible financing” that really means “you’re paying for the car, the interest, and the guy’s boat.”

Now, why are they in court? Simple: breach of contract. That’s the only claim here, and it’s the bread and butter of auto finance lawsuits. When you sign a loan agreement, you’re promising to pay a certain amount on a certain schedule. When you don’t, that’s a breach. It’s not fraud. It’s not theft. It’s not even a dramatic heist where she drove the Kia into a lake and claimed it was stolen. It’s just… non-payment. The most boring crime in capitalism. But legally, it’s enough. Auto Finance USA says, “Hey, she signed a contract, she didn’t uphold her end, and now we want the rest of the money.” And in the eyes of the law, that’s a valid argument.

So what do they want? Judgment for $10,751.04 in principal, plus that $826.48 in interest (and more interest going forward, at that eye-watering 20.94%), plus court costs, plus a “reasonable attorney fee,” and “such other relief to which plaintiff may be justly entitled.” Translation: we want every penny we’re owed, plus extras for the inconvenience of having to sue her. The total demand? $10,751.52—though that’ll grow if this drags on.

Now, is $10,751 a lot? Well, for a used 2016 Kia Soul? Honestly, it’s a lot. Even a clean, low-mileage one rarely goes for more than $10,000 on the private market. She didn’t just owe that much—she still owes that much after they took the car back and sold it. That means she likely financed way more than the car was worth—maybe rolled over negative equity from a previous loan, or paid inflated prices and fees. This is how people get trapped in the cycle of debt: you buy a car you can’t really afford, it breaks down or loses value fast, you miss payments, they repossess it, sell it for less than you owe, and suddenly you’re on the hook for thousands… for a car you no longer have. It’s like paying for a Netflix subscription after they’ve already canceled your account.

And yet—here’s the thing—we’re not here to judge. We’re entertainers, not lawyers, and our job is to tell the story, not preach about personal responsibility. But let’s be real: the most absurd part of this whole saga isn’t that someone defaulted on a car loan. People do that every day. It’s not even the 20.94% interest rate, though that’s wild. No, the most absurd part is that a company called Auto Finance USA, LLC—a debt buyer with all the charm of a boiler room operation—has sent a man named Hugh Fudge to sue a woman over a Kia Soul, armed with statutes, interest calculations, and the full authority of the Oklahoma District Court.

We’re rooting for transparency. For a world where people know what they’re signing before they drive off the lot. Where interest rates don’t look like mortgage APRs from the Dark Ages. And where, maybe, someone finally makes a documentary called Who Is Hugh Fudge and Why Is He Suing People Over Used Kias? Until then, this case stands as a perfect little monument to the quiet, grinding machinery of consumer debt—where the stakes are real, the cars are modest, and the interest rates? Oh, the interest rates are brutal.