So I found myself in a situation where my car is no more (no longer safe to drive, won't pass inspection, that kind of thing) and in need of another. And knowing my credit history and the fact that I've just started working on cleaning it up, I knew this wouldn't be easy.
After the usual sub-prime places turned me down, I tried one of those buy here-pay herestealerships dealerships. Not only did they manage two hard pulls (they used a different address each time, so it shows up as two), they forwarded my app to two other places without my permission. The first was United Auto Credit. The name of the second one escapes me at the moment.
Google United Auto Credit if you want. They seem to be known for their lack of ethics and illegal collection practices. The best comment I found on them is, "Don Corleone had more integrity."
Well, that certainly applies to their privacy policy--or lack thereof.
They called my office to verify employment (as expected) and I happened to answer. The loan officer spilled the beans to me on "this employee's auto loan application" (not knowing I was the applicant), leaving out only my name. I sent them to our central verification people. She called back a couple hours later, this time spilling even more beans (again, not knowing she had reached me)--things like "I show this employee's start date as..." and "would you happen to know anything...?"
In a nutshell, the loan officer couldn't handle first grade arithmetic, so I then referred her to a "local" HR person who could re-hash what she had already learned. Now get this: instead of asking for the HR contact as I instructed, the loan officer detailed everything to the person who answered the phone at the main office number. And then she asked for HR. The next time I saw this person, she said, "Oh, I heard you're getting a car!" I asked what she knew; she proceeded to tell me the half-dozen details about my app, my credit, my employment history, et cetera, this loan officer told her.
It's not that I live a secret life or that I don't trust my coworkers, but I still don't desire for them to know everything about my credit history. I think I will write a nastygram to UAC's HQ detailing this egregious breach of privacy.
Oh, by the way, I didn't get the loan. Reason? "Instability of recent employment" (Remember the arithmetic problem? I've had the job for four years, 40 hours a week.)
So what do you guys think? Is a nastygram in order?
After the usual sub-prime places turned me down, I tried one of those buy here-pay here
Google United Auto Credit if you want. They seem to be known for their lack of ethics and illegal collection practices. The best comment I found on them is, "Don Corleone had more integrity."
Well, that certainly applies to their privacy policy--or lack thereof.They called my office to verify employment (as expected) and I happened to answer. The loan officer spilled the beans to me on "this employee's auto loan application" (not knowing I was the applicant), leaving out only my name. I sent them to our central verification people. She called back a couple hours later, this time spilling even more beans (again, not knowing she had reached me)--things like "I show this employee's start date as..." and "would you happen to know anything...?"
In a nutshell, the loan officer couldn't handle first grade arithmetic, so I then referred her to a "local" HR person who could re-hash what she had already learned. Now get this: instead of asking for the HR contact as I instructed, the loan officer detailed everything to the person who answered the phone at the main office number. And then she asked for HR. The next time I saw this person, she said, "Oh, I heard you're getting a car!" I asked what she knew; she proceeded to tell me the half-dozen details about my app, my credit, my employment history, et cetera, this loan officer told her.
It's not that I live a secret life or that I don't trust my coworkers, but I still don't desire for them to know everything about my credit history. I think I will write a nastygram to UAC's HQ detailing this egregious breach of privacy.
Oh, by the way, I didn't get the loan. Reason? "Instability of recent employment" (Remember the arithmetic problem? I've had the job for four years, 40 hours a week.)
So what do you guys think? Is a nastygram in order?
