Paid off my car in March 09 and it still hasn't been reported to the credit bureaus. What can I do?

[Anonymous]

I bought my car from a buy here, pay here used car lot. Had to do this due to my credit being bad. When I bought the car they told me that once it was paid off that they reported it to the credit agencies. I paid my car off in march of 09 then when I asked the owner when he would report it, he told me that he couldn't report it until he had 500 accounts all paid off because he couldn't report to the bureaus with less than 500 accounts. Is this true?

Well, it's now January of 2010 and he still has not reported my car to the bureaus. Is there anyone I can contact or anything I can do to get him to report it so that I can have that account of my reports? 

[llecs]

Welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), there's no requirement for the lender to report at all. I don't know about the 500, but everytime the OC reports, they have to pay a fee to each of the CRAs they report to. If you have hunds or even thousands of financed accounts, that's a bunch of money to be forked out on a monthly basis. A small time lender probably won't report at all.

[Anonymous]

Do you happen to know how much the fee is to report to the agencies?

[llecs]

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MysteriousSkin wrote:
Do you happen to know how much the fee is to report to the agencies?

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No clue. I imagine there's an initial fee to subscribe and an ongoing fee to report, based on the number of records, I suppose.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, okay. Thanks.

[Jazzzy]

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@llecs wrote:

Welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), there's no requirement for the lender to report at all. I don't know about the 500, but everytime the OC reports, they have to pay a fee to each of the CRAs they report to. If you have hunds or even thousands of financed accounts, that's a bunch of money to be forked out on a monthly basis. A small time lender probably won't report at all.

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Hi IIecs...even though there is no requirement to report, the OP doesn't have to sit with reporting that is incorrect, does he? I would think he could dispute this with the credit bureau as being inaccurate.

To the OP...I certainly think you could dispute this as being incorrect. The credit bureau may see that the incorrect balance is corrected, or the entire account may be dropped from the report.

[llecs]

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LynetteM wrote:

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@llecs wrote:

Welcome to the forums!

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), there's no requirement for the lender to report at all. I don't know about the 500, but everytime the OC reports, they have to pay a fee to each of the CRAs they report to. If you have hunds or even thousands of financed accounts, that's a bunch of money to be forked out on a monthly basis. A small time lender probably won't report at all.

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Hi IIecs...even though there is no requirement to report, the OP doesn't have to sit with reporting that is incorrect, does he? I would think he could dispute this with the credit bureau as being inaccurate.

To the OP...I certainly think you could dispute this as being incorrect. The credit bureau may see that the incorrect balance is corrected, or the entire account may be dropped from the report.

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Unless I read the org. post wrong, I think the OP was hoping that it would report so as to add history to his/her report. But instead of reporting as promised, the tradeline never reported at all. OP, if I read this wrong, please correct me.

[Anonymous]

Unless I read the org. post wrong, I think the OP was hoping that it would report so as to add history to his/her report. But instead of reporting as promised, the tradeline never reported at all. OP, if I read this wrong, please correct me.

Yes, this is correct. Sorry it took me so long to respond.

[soliloquy]

I'm not an expert or anything but my understanding is that if you go through the actual credit bureaus to dispute a debt, you actually have the option of disputing the balance currently due on the debt and then the credit bureau will check that out for you. On most of the reports I saw a place where you could add a message. I guess I'd put something like I need verification of loan pay-off from March 09 as the current balance reflected is incorrect and then I'd specifically mention that I do NOT want this loan deleted from my credit report, just verified as paid in full.

The other option is, ask the lender how much it costs to report just one account to the credit bureas. If it's not THAT unreasonable I might offer to pay for it as crazy as that sounds and see if he'd go for that. I'd get it all in writing of course and I'd want it reported while I was there.

Message Edited by soliloquy on 01-31-2010 08:44 AM

[Jazzzy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Unless I read the org. post wrong, I think the OP was hoping that it would report so as to add history to his/her report. But instead of reporting as promised, the tradeline never reported at all. OP, if I read this wrong, please correct me.

Yes, this is correct. Sorry it took me so long to respond.

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Sorry...I read it as just the payoff not reporting...but it's the entire tradeline.

All I can suggest is what the above poster suggested. Find out what it would cost to get this reported (and get an agreement in writing with the car dealership), and then decide if it's worth it to you to pay for it. There is no way to make them report.