Consequences of not paying off (vehicle) debt

Hi everyone,

I have a friend who is in an unfortunate situation. He cosigned a car loan for his buddy. His buddy stopped repaying the monthly payments and eventually the car was repossessed and sold off.

This happened quite some time ago: 2009. I'm not sure when my friend found out about this, but what was ~20k has mounted up to ~30k due to 8 years of interest.

The car company had already filed a civil case against my friend which was adjudicated last year. So, it doesn't seem like my friend has any choice but to pay (or have his buddy pay up). The car company has already taken the remaining balance out of his bank account ~2k, so he closed his account right away.

My friend entertained the possibility of just not paying it, which seems like a bad idea to me.

I'd like to convince him otherwise. What's the worst that can happen?

Here are some things I'm thinking about, but please let me know if these aren't correct:

• Interest will continue to rack up

• Perhaps the debt can be passed to his wife

• Any property, bank account, vehicle he owns is at risk of repossession

• At retirement, the debt can be taken from his social security benefits.

Thanks for the help everyone.