<prompt> Human: My best friend who does not make much more than minimum wage just financed a brand new car with only 1000 down and an 18 interest rate. He should absolutely not have done that and I wish hed talked to me about it beforehand so I could have talked him out of it. Anyway, my question is : How does someone like him get approved for a loan that he is obviously not going to be able to handle ? What are creditors thinking ?!  <response>: In most cases lenders will give people more than enough rope to hang themselves. This is why, for example, if a person is considering a house and the bank will only just give them enough for it there should be major alarms going off about actual affordability. As for the car, if his expenses are low he can probably make payments on this. It will hurt, it wont be fun. 