Question - Gurus needed

[missgamecock]

Consider this situation, a subprime dealership financing loans to bad credit risks. Can that company if someone is even 1 day late on a payment, intentionally hurt the consumer by A) reporting them 30 days late even if they were one day late B) because they were one day late, repeatedly do a hard pull inquiry on their credit as a part of financial review to intentionally damage that person's credit every time they are one day late.

In addition, I was under the impression that an account review for a credit card or loan can only be done as a soft inquiry unless that person asks for a credit line increase or something as a change of terms. I am having a disagreement with someone that works in a subprime dealership that credit cards and loans can and intentionally do hard pulls on credit at any time as part of financial review when they are one day late. Plus it dings the consumer's credit.

For the record, I have credit cards and loans and have never seen on my credit reports a hard pull for an account reveiw. Only if I asked for a credit line increase and gave permission.

So gurus what do you think?

[missgamecock]

Oh and I cited Pintos to them and that everyone is still trying to figure out exactly what permissible permission is and how it is applied with companies. There are lawsuits for doing exactly what was described that have started popping up.

[marty56]

I dont know about (B) but in answer to (A) Yes they can.  Most companies will either report an account as 30 days late after 30 days from the due date.  Some (Wells Fargo, best Buy) will report 30 days late if not paid by the next statement date which could be 2 days after the due date.

I will admit that what they did is not common and I would call them to see if they will remove the late.  They might do that if you had a good payment history.

I know CCCs will probably jack up your interest rate even if they dont report the payment as 30 days

late.

I dont want to sound preachy and I am not role model (in the past that is) but never be late, not one day or even one hour.

[missgamecock]

I wasn't late. I try to NEVER be late. I was asking because she stated that her company routinely did this and I was like WHAT, they can't do that.

[Anonymous]

If an insallment loan company checks your credit- they had better code it for "Collection purposes"

The Gowen opinion letter from the FTC

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/gowen.shtm

[missgamecock]

Another question, part of the disagreement, can the creditor in doing a regular financial review, pull the credit as a hard inquiry instead of a soft inquiry. So say you want to make sure your client's finances are still good, they have made all their payments on time to you, does that give the right to the creditor to make a hard inquiry into their credit to do a financial review?

I say no, it can only be soft unless they have a reason to be pulling it, like for collection purposes.

She says yes they can do a hard inquiry every month to check your accounts even if it is in good standing.

Soft I can understand, but a hard hurts the client's credit.