A single mom in Atlanta bought a used Nissan Altima in 2018 for $21,000. Six years later, she had paid $38,000 on it, still owed $15,000, and the engine had just died. The car was worth about $5,000.

That’s the story that opens this replay episode of Money & Wealth. John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE, sits down with his longtime friend Tony Marzullo, owner of Gas Motorcars in Marietta, GA, to pull apart the “buy here, pay here” corner of the car business: 27% interest, fees stacked on fees, cars that can be shut off remotely, and vehicles that get sold, repossessed, and sold again to the next person who walks onto the lot.

John calls it modern-day sharecropping. Tony explains from the inside how the math works, why some of these lots don’t mind when the car comes back, and the one question he wishes every buyer asked before signing anything.

The conversation goes wider than the subprime lot, too. Tony shares why a $6,000-a-month car payment is no longer unusual in Atlanta, what happens when someone owes $225,000 on a car now worth $125,000, and the slap-in-the-face lesson his father taught him about the difference between a monthly payment and actually being able to afford something.

And there’s the part where a for-profit car dealer does something no one expected for a stranger who had run out of options.

Listen to the full episode on the Black Effect Podcast Network, and if you know someone shopping for a car right now, send it to them first.