BMW Financial Dispute

[Anonymous]

Hey guys and gals,

I had a 30 day late with BMW Financial back in November, currently disputing it because it was not my fault that their auto pay had a glitch or didn’t work for whatever reason.

Anyways, I just got an alert on MyFICO app from Experian saying it went from “consumer disputes/investigation in progress” to “auto fixed rate”.

What does that even mean?

[Anonymous]

Bueller?

[Anonymous]

So after firing off an email to the CEO pleading my case, on Thursday 7/12, I didn’t really expect a reply.

And I didn’t get one, yet.

What I did get was an alert from Equifax that I had started a dispute. “Customers disputes/investigation in progress”

All I asked was for a goodwill gesture of removing my 30 day late payment.

Does anyone think this could be the result of that email I sent?

[RobertEG]

That appears to me to be an irrelevant and erroneous alert that is unrelated to the status of your dispute.

The real issue is the required update to show that the dispute has been concluded, such as by stating that the dispute that the reporting was in compliance with the FCRA (i.e., was verified or corrected).

Any dispute has a required conclusion of reinvestigation of either 30 or 45 days, depending upon whether the consumer sent additional information to the CRA during the reinvestigation period.  The CRA is then required to send a formal Notice of REsults of Reinvestigation to the consumer within 5 business days after termination of the period for reinvestigation.

A dispute filed in November would thus have necessarily required conclusion and sending of a Notice of Results of Reinvestigation no later than some time in January, 2018.

You thus have a dispute that must have been concluded with notice sent to you at least six months ago.

I would contact the CRA and request a copy of the apparently missing Notice of Results of Reinvestigation, and prompt update of the dispute flag to show that the dispute has been resolved, and its outcome.

[Anonymous]

So I had sent a goodwill request to the CEO of BMW North America. I pleaded my case, but I was not disputing anything.

I call BMW Financial Services to question the alert and they said that my letter to the CEO had triggered an investigation on their end and they say that any sort of letter like that (goodwill) will always result in the comment notated on the credit report, even if it is not being disputed.

That doesn’t sound right.

What are your thoughts @RobertEG

[RobertEG]

If you send a good-will request to a furnisher and they report a pending dispute flag to a CRA, that is acknowlwdgement on their part that they have treated your communication as a direct dispute.  

Any direct dispute requires, under the provisions of FCRA 623(a)(8) and the implementing regulations at 16 CFR 660.4, completion of their investigation of your dispute within 30 days, and sending of notice of their results of their investigation directly to you within 5 business days after conclusion  of the investigation period.  Thus, they MUST respond with formal results of their investigation within the statutory period.

Any dispute filed in November that they notified a CRA was being considered as a dispute must have been concluded by sending of a notice of results of their investigation prior to sometime near the end of December.

They cannot send notice to a CRA that you have filed a formal dispute under the FCRA, and then ignore their statutory obligation to process the dispute within the required time period.   Furnishers only report disputes filed under the FCRA or FCBA, not other communications such as a good-will request.

You can thus file a formal complaint with the CFPB for their violation of the direct dispute process requirements of FCRA 623(a)(8), and their related requirement to them update any reported pending dispute flag by then providing the outcome of the dispute.

Of course, you dont consider it to be a dispute, but if they make that holding, they cannot have it both ways......

[Anonymous]

Okay, so the one dispute I filed was in December. They got back to me with their results in January.

I ignored the whole thing until about a week ago when I sent a goodwill request to the CEO.

Since I never filed a formal dispute, you’re saying I can file a complaint with the CFPB?

Sorry, just trying to make sure I understand everything you’re saying, correctly.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[RobertEG]

Unless a prior dispute related to the lack of update of the dispute code to show the outcome of the direct dispute, then any prior dispute would not be relevant to the issue of their lack of compliance with the resolution period requirements of FCRA 623(a)(8).

Yes, you can file a formal complaint with the CFPB relating to their lack of compliance with the direct dispute process at any time.

However, a CFPB complaint will not have a 30-day investigation time period, so you might choose to first file a dispute with the CRA over the lack of update of the dispute code, which is mandated upon conclusion of any direct dispute.

I would advise first filing a dispute with teh CRA before treating as an admin matter via a complaint to the CFPB.

The lack of reasonable investigation of that dispute could then also be included in a subsequent CFPB complaint, showing a repeated pattern of noncompliance with the FCRA.