unauthorized inquiries by car dealership

[Anonymous]

I AM SO ANRGY!!I GOT AN OFFER FROM CAP ONE AUTO FINANCE THAT I AM CURRENTLY FINANCING THROUGH  FOR A NO MONEY DOWN RE-FINANCE.SO I GO TO A DEALERSHIP WITH THE PRE-APPROVED APPLICATION IN-HAND (ALREADY FILLED-OUT).I SAY TO THE SALESMAN "I AM ONLY INTERRESTED IN FINANCING WITH CAP-ONE."I ALREADY HAVE A LOAN WITH THEM AND I LIKE PAYING VIA PHONE WHICH HELPS ME PAY ON-TIME.THAT BEING SAID,I LOOKED AROUND AND SAW NOTHING I LIKED.I SAID I DON'T SEE ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY INTERESTING AND I WANT TO LEAVE NOW.(ILEFT THE PRE-APPROVED/FILLED-OUT CAP-ONE APPLICATION ON THE GUYS DESK)HE CONVINCED ME TO TEST DRIVE A TRUCK I SAID O.K. BUT I AM TELLING YOU I DO NO WANT THIS TRUCK!!!!

I GET OUT AND SAY ONCE AGAIN NO THANKS NOT INTERESTED.OUT POPS SOME GUY IN THE BACK SAYING CONGATULATIONS YOU WERE APPROVED FOR THE TRUCK AREN'T YOU HAPPY.I SAID "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT"I DON'T WANT THAT TRUCK AND NEVER INDICATED TO ANYONE THAT I DID.LONG STORY SHORT IT SEEMS THIS JERK USED THE TIME IT TOOK TO TEST DRIVE THAT HUNK OF JUNK TRUCK TO RUN MY CREDIT UNBEKNOWNST TO ME.NOT ONLY THAT HE RAN IT TO FIFTEEN DIFFERENT FINANCE COMPANIES!!!WHAT CAN I DO I HAVE ALL THESE UNAUTHORIZED INQUIRIES,WE NEVER DICUSSED PRICE OR ANYTHING HOW CAN THEY GET AWAY WITH THIS.IDO I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THESE INQUERIES ON MY REPORT FOR TWO YEARS??CAN I DISPUTE BASED ON THE FACT THAT I ONLY WANTED TO FIANANCE THROUGH CAP-ONE AND THESE JERKS DID WHAT THEY WANTED TO DO .PLEASE SOMEONE ADVISE ME.

[Anonymous]

If you signed anything that had your SSN on it, they can probably claim permissible purposes.

For EQ, deleting inquiries online is relatively easy and painfree. But first, you'll need to have a copy of your credit report in hand. The confirmation number on it is what you need.

For TU, soft pulls of your credit report can bump off hard pulls. You need to subscribe to a monitoring service, and you can update every 24 hours which generates a soft pull. I use TrueCredit thru the Walmart Financial Services link. TC is $14.95 a month, but $11.21 thru Walmart.

For EX, about the only thing that works, and even then it's spotty, is to write the fraud department state you did not authorize these pulls. They may recode them as soft pulls which won't hurt you. Maybe they'll delete 'em altogether.

I believe hard pulls requires a name and address, and if you didn't authorize them to pull then you may have standing to sue for a violation of FCRA. It's a $1,000 per violation. $15K in violations, but you'd probably have to sue each individual violator. Again, depending upon what you signed, they might have standing under permissible purposes to defend themselves.

[Anonymous]

thank you for your help,I will try to dispute them like you said.One question I have in regards to your response,although they had my SSN#(on the pre-approved CAP+ONE APPLICATION) i specified that I only wanted financing through CAP-ONE.I gave them no permission to seek financing on my behalf from anyone else,isn't that some type of fraud??or misrepresentation??furthermore we never talked price.as I said I never made any indication that I was interested in purchasing.a test drive by no means says "I want to buy".Alson fifteen inquiries???isn't that a little excessive??

[Anonymous]

Did you state it in writing? They'll hide behind, "but you signed the piece of paper". They will claim you gave them consent, and you'll need to speak politely with a 2x4 to get someone's attention.

Inquiries can be deleted, but with varying degrees of difficulty, persistent, luck, and maybe even the threat of a lawsuit. You can't sue the credit bureaus, but you can sue creditors who pull your report without permission.

[Anonymous]

thanks again Noah

really appreciate your insight,so,do I contact every finance company and ask and or threaten them to delete these inquiries??I have a bunch (fifteen)different letters from these companies some granting me credit some denying me credit.another question would you have any idea how many points I lost for having all those inquiries??Also I spoke to someone from transunion via phone and was told all those inquiries because they were on the same date woudl be considered one inquiry.that was a crock because when I pulled my report it clearly stated"the number of inquiries on my file adversely affected my credit score.Why did the guy from Transunion lie???

[Anonymous]

Supposedly, FICO scoring takes into account when one is car shopping or home shopping. As such, multiple inquiries within a window, I've heard 30 days, is counted together. Since inquiries aren't tagged as for a car loan, home loan, credit card, or line of credit at a whorehouse, then if it's true about FICO scoring the inquiries all together won't hurt you, much.

Since you'd be fighting up to 15 different agencies, there's a good chance it could prove a painful fight. And, they might still show they had cause for the inquires. Court is always a crapshoot. I know this would boil my backside, and this sort of things happens with frequency.

The EQ inquiries are pretty easy to delete.
Get your EQ printed report, that show the inquiries, and go here.
http://www.investigate.equifax.com
Enter Zip Code and submit. Where it says, "If you do not have a confirmation number, click here", click it.

Fill in personal info. It's a bit counterintuitive in that you were just asked if you didn't have a confirmation number, yet now you're asked for one. If you don't yet have a printed EQ report, you could try it and leave the confirmation number blank.

Under investigate #1 thru #6, enter the name of the company doing the inquiry, and in Case # enter "Inquiry mm/dd/yyyy" where mm/dd/yyyy is the date of the inquiry, and check Not Mine. You can delete 6 at a time this way.

I got 10 EQ inquiries deleted this way. May or may not have been related, but my EQ FICO moved up about 11 points around that time. So the effect of 15 inquiries probably isn't a lot.

For EX and TU, send 'em a letter and put it ATTN: Fraud Department. Tell 'em you didn't authorize these inquiries and that you'd like 'em deleted. They might delete 'em. They might simply recode 'em as soft pulls. Either is a win, but they might also do nothing. The credit bureaus aren't required to do a thing. But it's an economical approach that may work. Price of two stamps is hard to beat.

If you want to try and rain on their parade, without having to pay for a lawyer and a lawsuit, file a complaint with the BBB, FTC and state AG. Complain to your state AG as well as the AG for the state where the finance company resides. Some AGs are very non-responsive to such complaints while others will rain down a brown sticky storm. Complain about the dealership as well as the companies that pulled your report.

Folks in the credit industry have, for a very long time, been their own little private fiefdom. Times are changing, albeit slowly, and they long for the bad old days. As such, credit bureaus will lie, drag their feet, ignore disputes, fail to respond in a timely fashion, refuse to investigate, and a myriad of other things even though people have in recent years begun filing lawsuits and winning. People have started researching, reading and learning about FCRA and FDCPA, and the credit bureaus only grudgingly comply with the law. Even then, only with the parts with which they feel comfortable complying.

[Anonymous]

thank you Noah,

you are the best!!! You gave me some very sound advice and I truly appreciate your insight.I will be sure to give you and update.Thanks again,miss Dee

[Anonymous]

Noah,

I have so many inquiries on my credit reports that lowered my score. Thing is that all of those are by collection agencies that had my accounts that i messed up on. My question is whether that is considered a permissible inquiry or not? How can i get them removed? Can i say that i didnt authorized those inquiries because the collection agencies just went ahead by themselves and pulled my reports.

thanks,

[Anonymous]

Irvin,

See my posts #2 and #6 on this thread. EQ is fairly easy to get inquiries deleted from. TU inquiries can get bumped off (see post #2). For EX, it's a royal bear, and even then you probably won't get many off your reports.

[Anonymous]

Irvin - Are you sure it's the inquiries that are lowering your score?

I think if the inquiries are by the collection agencies, they probably are "account review" inquiries which are soft pulls and don't lower your score, rather than regular (hard pull) inquiries which do.  Think about it: no one applies for credit from a collection agency.