Dealership refusing to use my DCU loan. Help?

[Anonymous]

For those of you that have posted that the OP shouldn't be concerned about the inquiries as they only count as 1, I'm reposting what I wrote in another similar thread.

There is a common misperception about the whole counting as 1 issue. For FICO scoring purposes alone auto financing inquiries within a 2 week period (the time varies from what I've read but generally in this range) will count as 1 but every single inquiry will show on your credit report. They don't just magically disappear or are combined into showing as 1 inquiry. And because they do show as multiple inquiries they certainly can hurt your credit and ability to obtain other credit despite not significantly affecting your FICO score. This is why it's so important when car shopping that you do your best to limit the amount of times your credit is pulled by anyone. As you can see in your case it's not always possible to do so despite your best efforts. On the other hand I've seen where someone is car shopping and they fill out credit applications with lots of dealerships and/or banks and think that the 45 inquiries on their report won't hurt them because they only count as 1 for FICO. When you apply for a credit card for example the computer sees every inquiry and counts them individually and as most of us know, you can be denied credit for the sole reason of 'excessive inquiries'.  

Also so one poster stated that they dealerships can only pull your credit with written permission.  Sadly that is not true as the FTC has guidelines that indicate when a dealership can pull your credit and there are provisions where it can be done without written permission.

[Revelate]

---

@jim44 wrote:

+1  The dealership can't legally pull your credit without your signed authorization so one of those papers you signed obviously gave them permission. Next, other posters are correct, the HPs will be lumped into one. 

DCU should have given you some sort of confirmation that you had been approved such as a draft or offiical letter. I can't see any dealership allowing you to "take home" a vehicle overnight because they want you to test drive.  They must have had you approved by that time.

For future reference you can asked for a Bill of Sale/Puchase agreement showing all the particulars of the sale, have them fax it to your preapproved lender OR you can send it yourself and they will send the approval to the dealer.  Auto loan funding checks are usually made payable to the dealer or the dealer AND the purchaser.  If you haven't signed a bill of sale with the dealer you can return the vehicle with no problem.

Agreed that some dealer's business practices are underhanded but they are in the business to make money just like every other business.  The trick is to educate yourself before buying. Dealers benefit from repeat sales so not all of them take advantage of their customers.  If you know anyone in the business, talk to them and they can advise on how to proceed. I hope everything works out for you. 

---

Happens all the time even to the incredibly small population on this forum; can drive a car off the lot and still be contingent on financing approval.  

My own personal experience with dealer financing: knew it wasn't going to be either Honda or Acura financing on a used car, so I point blank asked the F&I guy who was getting the loan: he replied he didn't know exactly and that it would likely be Wells Fargo Dealer Services as the loan agent was hungry but he'd have to see.  

I spent 15 minutes on the drive home testing the bluetooth hands-free capability while I played 20 questions about my ugly ass report with the WFDS loan agent before he agreed that it was worth approving so it even happened to me.  If I hadn't been approved (my old Dell phone experience and my downpayment in addition to the employer everyone's heard of were probably the only positive factors on my application), well we've had horror stories here about people having to return their rides 3ish days later because the financing fell through.

[Anonymous]

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

@jim44 wrote:

+1  The dealership can't legally pull your credit without your signed authorization so one of those papers you signed obviously gave them permission. Next, other posters are correct, the HPs will be lumped into one. 

DCU should have given you some sort of confirmation that you had been approved such as a draft or offiical letter. I can't see any dealership allowing you to "take home" a vehicle overnight because they want you to test drive.  They must have had you approved by that time.

For future reference you can asked for a Bill of Sale/Puchase agreement showing all the particulars of the sale, have them fax it to your preapproved lender OR you can send it yourself and they will send the approval to the dealer.  Auto loan funding checks are usually made payable to the dealer or the dealer AND the purchaser.  If you haven't signed a bill of sale with the dealer you can return the vehicle with no problem.

Agreed that some dealer's business practices are underhanded but they are in the business to make money just like every other business.  The trick is to educate yourself before buying. Dealers benefit from repeat sales so not all of them take advantage of their customers.  If you know anyone in the business, talk to them and they can advise on how to proceed. I hope everything works out for you. 

---

Happens all the time even to the incredibly small population on this forum; can drive a car off the lot and still be contingent on financing approval.  

My own personal experience with dealer financing: knew it wasn't going to be either Honda or Acura financing on a used car, so I point blank asked the F&I guy who was getting the loan: he replied he didn't know exactly and that it would likely be Wells Fargo Dealer Services as the loan agent was hungry but he'd have to see.  

I spent 15 minutes on the drive home testing the bluetooth hands-free capability while I played 20 questions about my ugly ass report with the WFDS loan agent before he agreed that it was worth approving so it even happened to me.  If I hadn't been approved (my old Dell phone experience and my downpayment in addition to the employer everyone's heard of were probably the only positive factors on my application), well we've had horror stories here about people having to return their rides 3ish days later because the financing fell through.

---

Absolutely happens all the time.  It's a favorite technique dealerships use to get you attached to the car while they work on the financing. It's easy for people to change their minds once they leave the dealership without the vehicle they are interested in.  On the other you can get real attached to the vehicle when you drive it home and people see you with a new car and are less likely to change your mind.

[SamsungHDTV]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

For those of you that have posted that the OP shouldn't be concerned about the inquiries as they only count as 1, I'm reposting what I wrote in another similar thread.

There is a common misperception about the whole counting as 1 issue. For FICO scoring purposes alone auto financing inquiries within a 2 week period (the time varies from what I've read but generally in this range) will count as 1 but every single inquiry will show on your credit report. They don't just magically disappear or are combined into showing as 1 inquiry. And because they do show as multiple inquiries they certainly can hurt your credit and ability to obtain other credit despite not significantly affecting your FICO score. This is why it's so important when car shopping that you do your best to limit the amount of times your credit is pulled by anyone. As you can see in your case it's not always possible to do so despite your best efforts. On the other hand I've seen where someone is car shopping and they fill out credit applications with lots of dealerships and/or banks and think that the 45 inquiries on their report won't hurt them because they only count as 1 for FICO. When you apply for a credit card for example the computer sees every inquiry and counts them individually and as most of us know, you can be denied credit for the sole reason of 'excessive inquiries'.  

Also so one poster stated that they dealerships can only pull your credit with written permission.  Sadly that is not true as the FTC has guidelines that indicate when a dealership can pull your credit and there are provisions where it can be done without written permission.

---

Everybody needs to pay attention to this post. To recap and put in shorter terms, two weeks is the rule of thumb window to apply (some credit scoring models are a month), all inquiries will count as 1 inquiry for scoring purposes only, and count as MULTIPLE inquiries for all other purposes. So when applying for credit, although you might not get declined for credit score, you still could get declined for "too many recent inquiries".

The declines for too many inquiries are usually automatic systematic declines. I imagine its like if score is between 650-700, then auto decline if application has over 10 inqs. If score between 600-649, then auto decline more than 5 inquiries. Making that up but just for illustration purposes.

What can you do about it? This is where manual review comes in. You sometimes have to request a reconsideration, stating multiple inquiries due to interest rate shopping on auto loan. A person would be able to see, yes he/she was just rate shopping, all else looks good, lets override the decline.

[jim44]

---

@SamsungHDTV wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

For those of you that have posted that the OP shouldn't be concerned about the inquiries as they only count as 1, I'm reposting what I wrote in another similar thread.

There is a common misperception about the whole counting as 1 issue. For FICO scoring purposes alone auto financing inquiries within a 2 week period (the time varies from what I've read but generally in this range) will count as 1 but every single inquiry will show on your credit report. They don't just magically disappear or are combined into showing as 1 inquiry. And because they do show as multiple inquiries they certainly can hurt your credit and ability to obtain other credit despite not significantly affecting your FICO score. This is why it's so important when car shopping that you do your best to limit the amount of times your credit is pulled by anyone. As you can see in your case it's not always possible to do so despite your best efforts. On the other hand I've seen where someone is car shopping and they fill out credit applications with lots of dealerships and/or banks and think that the 45 inquiries on their report won't hurt them because they only count as 1 for FICO. When you apply for a credit card for example the computer sees every inquiry and counts them individually and as most of us know, you can be denied credit for the sole reason of 'excessive inquiries'.  

Also so one poster stated that they dealerships can only pull your credit with written permission.  Sadly that is not true as the FTC has guidelines that indicate when a dealership can pull your credit and there are provisions where it can be done without written permission.

---

Everybody needs to pay attention to this post. To recap and put in shorter terms, two weeks is the rule of thumb window to apply (some credit scoring models are a month), all inquiries will count as 1 inquiry for scoring purposes only, and count as MULTIPLE inquiries for all other purposes. So when applying for credit, although you might not get declined for credit score, you still could get declined for "too many recent inquiries".

The declines for too many inquiries are usually automatic systematic declines. I imagine its like if score is between 650-700, then auto decline if application has over 10 inqs. If score between 600-649, then auto decline more than 5 inquiries. Making that up but just for illustration purposes.

What can you do about it? This is where manual review comes in. You sometimes have to request a reconsideration, stating multiple inquiries due to interest rate shopping on auto loan. A person would be able to see, yes he/she was just rate shopping, all else looks good, lets override the decline.

---

First congrats to the OP for FINALLY completing the purchase of his new car! 

I work for a small dealership and we use a DMS web system for in house financing. If a customer comes in with their own financing we do not ask for their SS#. If we do pull their CR we have them SIGN a credit application and would never pull a person's credit report without their knowledge AND signed written permission. To do otherwise would open our business to lawsuits.  Some dealers consider a signed purchase order as a "permissible purpose" but can't pull without a SS#.  And of course we use a DL for indenification. We pull a CR to evaluate the their credit history so they we can send the customer's app to a lender that we feel will approve the loan. We always call a loan officer to discuss the applicaton before it is submitted even with lenders (CUs) that are not signed up on our DMS system. That is just good business and we feel gives the customer a better chance of being approved. It also eliminates AUTO DECLINES.  There are a multitude of reasons why there are "baddies" on a persons credit history, ie medical collections, bankruptcies etc . Some subprimes don't even use a FICO score in their loan decisions.

Usually a customer has a specific vehicle they are interested in by shopping the web.  They will usually call to ask the particulars about a vehicle and if interested stop by for a test drive. Some of our vehicles may catch someone's eye as they drive past our lot.  98% of our customer's usually know beforehand which car model year and make they are interested in when they stop in. They ALL do test drives, some for even several hours. Only under a few occasions do we allow anyone to keep a car overnight such as it's late and we can't get them approved because the lenders are closed. However that customer has to have what we consider a 80% probability of being approved, want to purchase the vehicle and then they sign a Spot Delivery form and are told that if the loan isn't approved, they have to bring the car back. The customer is pretty much sure at this point that they want the car and don't need to keep it overnight to be convinced they want to buy it.   I don't know of any dealership in my area where they would allow a customer to test drive a vehicle overnight without some committment to buy.  I'm sure though there are dealers that do this.

It's obvious from posts on this forum that many have had bad experiences in car buying. However all dealers have the tendency to be lumped into the "dishonest" basket. Our business thrives from repeat customers so being underhanded is not something we do.  Misunderstandings unfortunately do happen and we try our best to correct the problem. So as Samsung and others have mentioned, when purchasing a vehicle talk to someone who is experienced not only in financing but also others that have had experience.  And never sign ANYTHING without reading and understanding what you are signing.  That is your right and should be no inconvenience to the dealer.  JMHO

[TRC_WA]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

For those of you that have posted that the OP shouldn't be concerned about the inquiries as they only count as 1, I'm reposting what I wrote in another similar thread.

There is a common misperception about the whole counting as 1 issue. For FICO scoring purposes alone auto financing inquiries within a 2 week period (the time varies from what I've read but generally in this range) will count as 1 but every single inquiry will show on your credit report. They don't just magically disappear or are combined into showing as 1 inquiry. And because they do show as multiple inquiries they certainly can hurt your credit and ability to obtain other credit despite not significantly affecting your FICO score. This is why it's so important when car shopping that you do your best to limit the amount of times your credit is pulled by anyone. As you can see in your case it's not always possible to do so despite your best efforts. On the other hand I've seen where someone is car shopping and they fill out credit applications with lots of dealerships and/or banks and think that the 45 inquiries on their report won't hurt them because they only count as 1 for FICO. When you apply for a credit card for example the computer sees every inquiry and counts them individually and as most of us know, you can be denied credit for the sole reason of 'excessive inquiries'.  

Also so one poster stated that they dealerships can only pull your credit with written permission.  Sadly that is not true as the FTC has guidelines that indicate when a dealership can pull your credit and there are provisions where it can be done without written permission.

---

Yep... I went into 2 dealerships with pre-approved financing (up to $28k) from BECU thinking my credit didn't have to be pulled...  I was told by both dealerships it did as part of Homeland Security and all that after 9/11.  Whether that was true or not doesn't matter to me now but that's what they said.

I took about 15 INQs across the 3 CRAs and I lost 1 point on EQ... none on TU and EX.

I gardened for 2014 prior to opening 4 new CC accounts in December.  I then bought this car in January 2015.  I'm gardening for a year all over again at which point these INQs will have aged and will have a lesser impact anyway.  I am fully aware I can still be denied for "too many inquiries" but that's the reason I did my CC applications prior to buying the car.  

I did what I could do to lessen the INQ impact... and while the dealership didn't get me a lower rate (4.49% vs BECU's 3.99%) they did get me approved for $42k with $0 down which was considerably more than my BECU approval.

I got my dream car and a decent loan considering I still have a BK13 showing.  I plan to refinance next year when my reports are totally clean.

[CreditCuriosity]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

@jim44 wrote:

+1  The dealership can't legally pull your credit without your signed authorization so one of those papers you signed obviously gave them permission. Next, other posters are correct, the HPs will be lumped into one. 

DCU should have given you some sort of confirmation that you had been approved such as a draft or offiical letter. I can't see any dealership allowing you to "take home" a vehicle overnight because they want you to test drive.  They must have had you approved by that time.

For future reference you can asked for a Bill of Sale/Puchase agreement showing all the particulars of the sale, have them fax it to your preapproved lender OR you can send it yourself and they will send the approval to the dealer.  Auto loan funding checks are usually made payable to the dealer or the dealer AND the purchaser.  If you haven't signed a bill of sale with the dealer you can return the vehicle with no problem.

Agreed that some dealer's business practices are underhanded but they are in the business to make money just like every other business.  The trick is to educate yourself before buying. Dealers benefit from repeat sales so not all of them take advantage of their customers.  If you know anyone in the business, talk to them and they can advise on how to proceed. I hope everything works out for you. 

---

Happens all the time even to the incredibly small population on this forum; can drive a car off the lot and still be contingent on financing approval.  

My own personal experience with dealer financing: knew it wasn't going to be either Honda or Acura financing on a used car, so I point blank asked the F&I guy who was getting the loan: he replied he didn't know exactly and that it would likely be Wells Fargo Dealer Services as the loan agent was hungry but he'd have to see.  

I spent 15 minutes on the drive home testing the bluetooth hands-free capability while I played 20 questions about my ugly ass report with the WFDS loan agent before he agreed that it was worth approving so it even happened to me.  If I hadn't been approved (my old Dell phone experience and my downpayment in addition to the employer everyone's heard of were probably the only positive factors on my application), well we've had horror stories here about people having to return their rides 3ish days later because the financing fell through.

---

Absolutely happens all the time.  It's a favorite technique dealerships use to get you attached to the car while they work on the financing. It's easy for people to change their minds once they leave the dealership without the vehicle they are interested in.  On the other you can get real attached to the vehicle when you drive it home and people see you with a new car and are less likely to change your mind.

---

Yep I have driven cars for the night or a few nights without signing or agreeing to anything to see If I like them and the dealership wants me to fall in love with the car, that is there hope.  They can track you down pretty easily if needed and get the car back.  Guess it probably depends on the dealership also them knowing other things about you.

[gdale6]

The easy fix is this, come to the table with your pre approved financing in hand and all of your reports on ice.

[CreditCuriosity]

---

@gdale6 wrote:

The easy fix is this, come to the table with your pre approved financing in hand and all of your reports on ice.

---

+1... When I walk into a dealership my reports are all frozen!  Either be pre-approved and keep them frozen or offer to unfreeze one of their choice or yours and say do you want to do business or not.. Good way to keep inquiries down and not deal with their BS... If they don't say I am sure the other dealer across town their competition will do business if you don't want to on these terms.

[joedtx]

---

@gdale6 wrote:

The easy fix is this, come to the table with your pre approved financing in hand and all of your reports on ice.

---

Wow.... I never thought of that. Very clever, I recently purchased a new Truck and was preapproved through my CU, I guess I should check my credit report I shopped several dealers and didn't sign anything but this makes me nervous.