ALLY AUTO LOAN NOT REPORTING PAYMENTS

[Anonymous]

I have an auto loan with Ally and the first 4 months of opening they reported monthly without fail. During that timeframe I made about 5k in principal payments which delayed my next payment until 2/2019. I picked up my normal monthly payments February 1st, March 1st, and April 1st. None of those payments created a balance change or reporting of payment on myfico account. Granted these payments are all interest payments because despite the 7 months of being ahead of payment schedule, my interest was still accruing.

Will there be a delay in reporting until my payments reach a point of touching principal and interest? Or does ally have some explaining to do? I feel a bit robbed of increases on my credit score. I'm trying to come out of the garden soon.

[Anonymous]

I would just call the lender and inquire as to their policies regarding monthly reporting and explain what you just did to us. 

As far as increases to your FICO score, what was your before and after overall installment loan utilization?  Increases from routine installment loan paydowns usually don't happen often.  If you paid off the loan significantly causing your aggregate utilization to fall under (say) 8.9% I would agree with you that you're likely missing out on FICO points, but otherwise you may not be at all or very little if so.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the swift reply Brutal body shots. I called them after the 2nd month and they claimed that they report quarterly on car loans. I was going to call them again seeing as how that didnt happen after March or April's payments. I did the calculations and I should be back to a regular payment amortization after this May 1st payment.

I financed 27k and my current payoff is 21,xxx. I pretty much paid 5k in the first 2-3 months and then I started dealing with other matters and put them on the back burner. I plan to pay it off before this year is up otherwise I'd just refinance for a better rate and terms.

At this point I'd be happy with an alert monthly or quarterly to at least report that payments were made. I'm set to receive a quarterly report mid May so maybe I'll just wait a few more weeks before I call them. Just seems out of the ordinary to not get the update. When my cc statement closes I get the alert even if it's no gain or loss.

You have some insightful points but they definitely have some explaining to do if nothing happens next month. Thanks for all of your input.

[Anonymous]

That whole quarterly thing seems odd to me.  I've personally never heard of that before, although perhaps others have and it's more common than I'm aware of.  While I wouldn't think so, they may be willing to do an off-cycle reporting if you ask.  It can't hurt to try.

As for your loan utilization, first, is that your only installment loan that's open?  If so, it looks like you've taken it down from 100% to around 79% or so utilization.  It's possible that there's a threshold at or about 80%, but if so the gain would be minimal, perhaps a few FICO points.  The entire span from 100% utilization down to 9% utilization is worth about half as much as crossing 8.9%.  So, if an almost-paid-off loan is "worth" 30 points, perhaps 20 are gained from crossing the 8.9% threshold and the other 10 are gained at (possibly) multiple points between 100% and 9% utilization.  In a nutshell, the gains over that 90% span are going to be quite small. 

[Anonymous]

I have a car loan with Ally and they update monthly.  My car payment is due on the 5th of every month but they don't update the balance until the end of the month.  I just checked my Experian and my last balance updated on 3/29.  I made my payment on 4/5 but they won't update this month's payment probably until next week(maybe the last business day of the month).  It has been continuous reporting every month since I've had the loan.

[Revelate]

I have seen some lenders skip reported payments but it isn’t common practice.

Auto loans are simple interest, the bigger question is did your loan balance increase during the idle time on your reports? If it didn’t then Ally is reporting outstanding principal and that presumably is why your tradeline is stuck.

[Anonymous]

I also have an auto loan with Ally and can confirm that they report my balance every single month, typically pulling data on the last or second to last day of the month. I am not sure why they told you that they report quarterly - the only explaination I can think of is that the rep was confused, because Ally gives you a free Fico Auto score every 3 months (quarterly), and maybe this is what they were referring to. Either way, your balance should be reported every month. 

[Anonymous]

First and foremost thank you to everyone for including your input and experiences, it truly does help. Brutal, I called Ally back and requested what you mentioned. They are escalating the discrepancy with their credit department and they will retroactively report those months that they failed to previously. Thank you!

In regards to my balance after the layover of payments: when I stopped payments I had a payoff of approximately $20,9xx back in April 2018. Today the payoff is $21,4xx. That is including the payments that I've made that spawned this commentary to the tune of around 1500 thus far. Good question/thought, it's possible that the accruing interest situation postponed the reporting mistakenly. I'm just ready to get out of the garden. I'm almost ready to APP for the jet blue plus card in time for my yearly trip to Jamaica.