AUTO ADVANTAGE FINANCE, LLC v. JEREMY ALEXANDER MARES

Let’s get one thing straight: a man in Tulsa owes $10,785.68 because he didn’t pay for his car — and now a finance company wants a judge to make him pay up. That’s it. That’s the whole case. No bodies, no betrayals, no secret love child — just a 2019 Dodge Challenger, a missed payment, and the cold, unrelenting machinery of car loan justice grinding forward like a muscle car with a grudge.

But before we paint Jeremy Alexander Mares as some deadbeat joyrider, let’s slow down and see how we got here. Because behind every civil suit over $10,000 is a story of choices, consequences, and probably a financing agreement printed in 8-point font. Jeremy, according to court records, bought a 2019 Dodge Challenger SXT — not exactly a clunker, not exactly a Lambo, but definitely the kind of car that says, “I may be midlife-crisising, but at least I’ve got style.” The deal went down on May 11, 2023, through a company called Express Credit Auto, which — if you know anything about car lending — sounds less like a dealership and more like a financial institution that specializes in second chances and higher interest rates. Think less “buy now, drive happy” and more “buy now, pray nothing breaks.”

Fast forward a bit — we don’t know exactly how many payments were made or for how long — but at some point, Jeremy stopped paying. That’s the kind of thing that happens when life intervenes: job loss, medical bills, or maybe he just really thought he could outrun the finance company like it was a cop in a movie. Either way, defaulting on a car loan isn’t a crime, but it is a breach of contract, and in the world of civil court, that’s more than enough to open the floodgates.

So what happens when you stop paying for your Challenger? The car gets repossessed. It’s not dramatic — no jump-cut chase scenes, no dramatic music — just a tow truck showing up while Jeremy wasn’t home, hooking it up, and hauling it away like it was just another Tuesday. Then, per standard procedure, the finance company sold the car. Not to a collector or a car enthusiast on Instagram, but likely at auction, to the highest bidder — probably a guy named Earl who flips Dodges in his spare time.

Here’s where the math gets spicy. After the car was sold, the company — now called Auto Advantage Finance, LLC (because of course the original lender assigned the debt to someone else, because finance is nothing if not a game of musical chairs with paperwork) — did the post-sale accounting. They subtracted what the car sold for from what Jeremy still owed. And guess what? He still owed money. $10,762.80 to be exact. Plus interest — because of course there’s interest. At a cool 12.9798% per year, because Oklahoma allows it, and because someone, somewhere, decided that charging nearly 13% on a used car loan was perfectly reasonable in the eyes of God and the Oklahoma Statutes.

So now we’re here: July 31, 2023, the lawsuit is filed in Tulsa County District Court. Auto Advantage Finance, LLC — represented by the full legal cavalry at Robinson, Hoover & Fudge, PLLC — wants its money. Not just the principal, but interest, attorney fees, court costs — the whole “you should’ve just paid on time” package. The total demand? $10,785.68. That’s not chump change — it’s a vacation, a down payment on a nicer car, or, if you’re being smart, a fully funded emergency fund. But in the world of car loans, is it a lot?

Well, let’s put it this way: the car was already used when Jeremy bought it in 2023 — a 2019 model, so about four years old. Depending on mileage and condition, a 2019 Challenger SXT might retail between $18,000 and $24,000. If Jeremy put nothing down and financed the full amount at that interest rate, he was probably paying close to $500 a month. But again — we don’t know how much he paid before defaulting, how much the car sold for at auction, or why he stopped paying. Maybe he lost his job. Maybe the transmission blew. Maybe he just decided the car wasn’t worth the payment anymore. The filing doesn’t say. And that’s the thing — in civil court, you don’t need a sob story. You just need a contract and a default.

Now, what’s being asked here isn’t jail time or community service. It’s not even a restraining order. It’s a judgment — a court stamp saying, “Yes, Jeremy Alexander Mares owes this money.” And once that’s in place, Auto Advantage Finance can garnish wages, put a lien on future property, or just keep calling until the debt is paid. They’re also asking for attorney fees, which, under Oklahoma law (12 O.S. § 936), are allowed in contracts that include such a provision. So if Jeremy loses, he might end up paying hundreds more just because he made a lawyer write this petition.

So what’s the most absurd part? Is it that a man is being sued over a car he no longer has? Nah. That’s capitalism. Is it the interest rate — 12.9798% — so precise it sounds like a glitch in The Matrix? A little spicy, but not unheard of for subprime auto lending. No, the real kicker is the timing. The contract was signed in May 2023. The lawsuit was filed in July 2023. That’s two months. Two. Months. Either Jeremy defaulted immediately — like, “I drove it home and never paid again” levels of fast — or the company is extremely trigger-happy with the repo trucks and the law firms.

And let’s talk about the plaintiff: Auto Advantage Finance, LLC. Sounds legit, right? But here’s a fun fact — companies like this often buy up defaulted car loans for pennies on the dollar, then sue to collect the full amount. So maybe they paid $3,000 for this debt and are now suing for $10,700. If that’s the case, they’re not just trying to get their money back — they’re trying to turn a profit off someone else’s misfortune. That’s not illegal. It’s just… kind of gross.

We’re not rooting for deadbeats. We’re not saying people should get free cars. But there’s something almost comical about the precision of this whole thing — the exact dollar amount, the hyper-specific interest rate, the fact that a man is being dragged into court over a vehicle that probably depreciated faster than his credit score. And yet, this is how it works. You sign a contract, you don’t pay, they take the car, sell it for less than you owe, and then come after you for the difference. It’s not dramatic. It’s not sexy. But it’s real. And it happens every single day in courtrooms across America.

So do we feel bad for Jeremy? Maybe a little. Do we feel bad for the finance company that’s outsourcing its collections to a law firm with five attorneys listed on the letterhead? Not really. Is this case a national scandal? No. But it’s a perfect snapshot of how the American debt machine grinds on — one Challenger, one default, one $10,785.68 judgment at a time.

And honestly? If you’re going to get sued, at least do it over a car that looks cool being towed.