Credit question on auto finance company

Discussion in 'Credit Talk' started by jeffalan49, Jan 27, 2016.

  1. jeffalan49

    jeffalan49 Member

    Hi. In January 2010, I had a car loan that was in both me and my wife’s name and then in my name only after she didn’t reaffirm the car loan after ch7 in mid 2012. Since mid 2012, this finance company put the account into their bk department which meant that they would not call me, send me statements or report to any credit bureaus. The last time anything was reported at all was to Experian in March of 2012. As of January 23, 2016, I no longer own the vehicle. I traded it in and the dealer paid the remaining $5400 I owed.
    My question is this: Will this finance company now report to all 3 credit bureaus that the loan is paid? I am worried that if they do, it will show many late payments that happened back in 2012. Again, I paid on the loan every month but was always 2 months late from March 2012 to January 2016. My FICOs are all in low 700’s. Please let me know what you think and suggest. Thanks.
     
  2. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    Thanks for your question Jeffalan49. Just to be clear, did you and your wife jointly file Chapter 7 back in 2012?
     
  3. jeffalan49

    jeffalan49 Member

    Joshua, no just my wife went Ch7. Since my auto loan with Santander is now closed, my question is will they possibly now report to all 3 CR's that this is now closed and if so, will it show all of those 30 day lates going back to March 2012? What I truly do not understand is why the Santander does not appear at all on Equifax and TU. Matter of fact, last Saturday when the Jeep dealer pulled my credit from TU, he was confused as to why Santander was not on there. Thanks. Jeff
     
  4. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    Hey Jeff, very interesting question. I can't say for sure, but based upon what I've seen happen in a few other similar circumstances when the payment history wasn't being reported for many years, I don't believe they will update all 3 of your credit reports now that the loan has been paid in full. Anyone else seen something different?

    I'm really interested to see how this plays out for you though, so please keep us updated on what happens.

    Hope you're enjoying the new wheels...congrats! :)
     
  5. jam237

    jam237 Well-Known Member

    Ok.

    Here's the catch-22.

    If they don't report, which may be very likely if the account is in it's BK status. You will always have $5,400 of unpaid debt reporting on your credit report. I have no idea how the scoring models would look at a 4 year 'stalled' debt for $5,400.

    Theoretically, they legally should update the account to PAID IN FULL $0 balance. Keeping the 'stalled' debt 'stalled' is reporting false credit information. Under the FCRA, they are required to update information that they know is incomplete, inaccurate or unverifiable. But asking for the update could provide the mixed bag of the payment history being updated as well.

    With this account, I would actually ask the finance company to consider DELETION, here's why I would sell it to them as their best option. (a) it avoids any potential issues for not reporting that the account was IIB; (b) it avoids the potential for them reporting that the account was IIB which would reflect that YOU had filed BK, which again would be reporting false credit information; and (c) it avoids any potential issues for not reporting the updated information.

    Before I would do anything though, if you are a member of CreditKarma or another site that let's you play with "What ifs", play around with what would happen to your score if the account was deleted; and if there was a non-payment history on the account.
     
  6. jeffalan49

    jeffalan49 Member


    Thanks for all of this information. The finance company in question is very hard to work with so asking them to delete my account will probably not work. I am very worried that when they do report account closed, all the lates will also show. I really do not know what to do. Not sure what places pull just Experian (the only one this account shows up on). My last worry is will this now show on Equifax and TU as well when it never showed to begin with? When we bought our house 1 year ago, the finance lady takes the mid score of all 3 bureaus. She was confused as well as to why this was only reported on Experian and only up to March 2012. Should I get an attorney to help me with this? Thanks for all the info, Jeff
     
  7. jam237

    jam237 Well-Known Member

    It depends on how much the score difference between TU, EQ and EX is impacting you.

    If the difference isn't impacting you too much, I would wait to see if anything changes. If after a month, it hasn't started reporting on the other two CRAs and hasn't been updated by EX, then you will have more information to determine how much you would want to worry about it.

    If I was the finance lady, I would have looked strange at the 'stalled' reporting of a $5,400 account, too. :)

    I understand working with difficult companies... :)

    I tend to take the following approach.

    1. You have nothing to gain from continuing to report the information on my credit report.
    2. If you verify wrong with the CRA, you now owe ME $1,000.00 for every single time that you verify the information incorrectly.
    3. I will be more than willing to run up a bill for as much as the CRAs allow me to by continuing to demand that the information be corrected.

    In this case, they are truly in a da%@ed if you do, da%@ed if you don't situation, because no matter how they update it, they'll be trapped into reporting incorrect information on your credit report, which is why deletion could be their best offer. :)
     
  8. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    Hey Jeff - I'm curious if you decided to make an attempt at requesting deletion from Santander or if you decided to just wait it out and see what happens, if anything, with your credit reports?
     
  9. mijd

    mijd Well-Known Member

    OP, I'm curious too. I don't think Santander would have issued you a new retail contract just in your name. I believe you are fortunate they never tried to repo your car when you became 2 months behind in your payments. I agree with Jam that it is in their best interest just to delete the trade line or never really report it. They have their money and they are way ahead then if you would have stopped payments altogether and forced them to repo the car. Let us know what happens, this is interesting. Hope everything goes in your favor.
     
  10. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    FYI, the OP posted in another thread that Santander came back and deleted the trade line from his credit reports.
     

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