@velocity5 wrote:Update: Success-ish....
Spoke with someone in the executive office today (she was incredibly nice - esp after reading about other's horror stories) and she completely sympathized with the situation. She agreed to remove the inaccurate negatives as long as I present documentation proving my claim that we traded in the car months prior to it beng paid off by the dealer. Honestly, I think this is a fair request on their part, however I wish they could have just fixed it for me right away! She specifically wanted a letter from the dealer stating when we traded in the vehicle and owning up to sending the pay-off late.
I am going to draft a letter for them, then go down to their lot this weekend and "ask" them to put it on their letterhead & sign. If they refuse, I will threaten to contact the BBB and report them / give negative reviews on Yelp / etc. Hopefully they will comply. Are there any other threats I can use?
As a back up, I am going to search for our documents related to the trade-in (unfortunately we've moved and I haven't tracked them down yet -- ack!) and hope that Santander will accept that as proof if the dealer gives us problems.
As an aside - some may be interested to know that the woman I spoke with positioned the credit bureaus as the ones with the power -- basically saying that without some proof, Santander couldn't change something without the bureaus potentially giving them (Santander) push back (haha). She also said that even if I produce a document from the dealer, she couldn't promise that all 3 bureaus would delete the negs. I found this really ironic, since everything I know about the bureaus, reporting, and OC's is exactly the opposite!!! OC's report to the bureaus and are in the driver's seat, as far as I know. Nevertheless I didn't argue with her b/c she promised to help.
Another update forthcoming.... annnnnnd I'm officially a #fFICOnerd for writing this on a Friday night!
From one MyFico nerd to another.... *high five* Woot! Sounds like your conversation went well. But seriously, why do you need to go and get a letter from the dealer?!?! Documentation from your trade-in should suffice. Oh Santander, never easy. Interesting you mention and picked up on the fact Santander is basically saying it's not their fault if the credit bureaus don't oblige. They stated (in my CFPB complaint against them) that they have no control how the credit bureaus report... What?!?! It seemed to me that they were placing blame on the CRAs. Anyhow, that's a story to tell another time. Go find some documentation!! This is a great accomplishment to even get someone from Santander to empathize and work with you (kinda). Congrats, and I still wanna hear how it all pans out!!