Q: Can a verbal contract with text message proof be legal after I have paid 3200.00 on a vehicle?
A:
Verbal contracts and text messages may be proof. How did you pay the money? By cancelled check? Or wire? Or western union? All those would be written proof and would be preferred.
People do not do business this way. If you are buying a vehicle, there should be a bill of sale and the title should be in your name and the buyer should have a lien on the title if you have not fully paid for the vehicle and the bill of sale should indicate how the payments will be made. And when you make the payments, they should always be by check or money order so you can make a copy of it to avoid exactly the situation you are now in.
The problem with text messages is that you will have to bring your phone with you into court and try and get the text message into evidence. And there is no real way to prove that the seller sent you a text message. A text message only proves that a message was sent from phone A to phone B. It does not tell you the identity of the sender. It might be inferred from the circumstances, but this is not really adequate proof in my view. I have not researched whether NC courts have gotten up with the times and whether there are any cases on the admissibility of text messages. If there are not, then it will be up to the judge to decide.
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