I am not afraid of offending anyone.
Here is what happened to me.
My wifes son joined the Air Force and maybe 6 months in, he wants to buy her pristine Toyota. The catch was that he couldn't get a loan. Hell, I am a stand-up guy so I suggested to my wife that I would consider co-signing for him like he had asked her to do (she didn't have the credit history to do it, of course I did). Plus we gave him a sweet price.
Fast foward 1.5 years. This shit of a son of hers was apparently having trouble dealing with authority in the service and had drifted off course. When I co-signed on the loan, it was supposed to be a payroll deduction (that was one of my conditions). Somehow it wasn't and next thing I know is I have the AirForce credit Union up my ass wanting back payments. Meanwhile the kid had ceased communicating with Mom (actually made some death threats to her in an email which I ended up giving the FBI). We escalated the situation to his commanding officer which pissed the kid off even more but got the loan current. Another year passed and a repeat performance on his part. Apparently he either totalled the car out or somehow the loan was satisifed since no more trouble since.
It's total bullshit to cosign for a child, much less a stranger. I have a similar horror story on carrying the note on a house for someone. Hey, if they pay it with no problems, it's a sweet deal, but when they don't then you have legal costs that quickly wipe out any profit you have made.
If I can make my point to just 1 person here, then it's worth pissing off the entire board.
Richard