Recently, my DH bought a truck from the used car dealers that we've been using for years now. Now they have never posted a positive TL's for us, but since we've paid off three vehicles (No lates in almost 5 years of doing business) with this company prior to buying this last one, we asked them if maybe they couldn't open a positive TL for at least this new truck. They said "Sure, we'll get right on it." Now, we've gotten numerous letters over the years telling us how we are considered "preferred customers". So, this is how they treat preferred customers... First, with the purchase of this truck, they pulled DH's credit report from EX. They've never pulled CR's on either of us before, cause it's never showed a hard pull on previous CR's. After causing a hard pull on DH's CR, they aren't posting a positive trade line, which makes it look like DH was turned down for credit. So, I call 'em up yesterday to ask, "What's up with that?" Was told, "Well, you signed a document saying we could pull your CR." "OK", says I, "Why have you never pulled a CR on either of us before? And after us having paid off three other vehicles with your company, what justifies the need to pull DH's CR?" Got a lot of sputters on that one, then an "I don't know", then got transferred to another rep. So I ask this guy, "Is this how you treat a preferred customer? Pulling his CR, then not listing a positive TL, which implies to future possible creditors that you denied him credit? Not to mention the fact that another hard pull on his CR lowers DH's score..." He tells me that they don't make credit reports, their "collection division" reports negative information only. That they'd be glad to give me a letter of credit to use for credit application purposes. I told him that we've already gotten one of their precious letters of credit back in July for applying for a small loan to start rebuilding DH's credit, and the bank looked at it as if it had as much value as toilet paper. So then, yesterday evening, the car lot calls DH and ask him to come up there and let them get a copy of his key, "for their files"! Of course, we understand them to mean "for repo purposes", and quite frankly, we're pissed. How freaking insulting! They're gonna have to show us where it says in the contract that we have to provide them with a key. They darn well had enough time to get a copy of the key before they sold it to us! Grrr! So be warned newbies... While Creditors will jump to report your bad credit information, they aren't so good about reporting the good stuff, even when your a "Preferred Customer"!!! Thanks for letting me vent!!!
Don't let them have a copy of the key. Screw them! And it might not even be worth it to get them to report a postive TL because once it shows up, they might not ever update it. You would end up with a positive open TL for one month and that's it. You might have no way of getting them to ever report the new lower balances. Not worth it IMO.
