That's a good question. I'm not sure what is the right answer. I'll do some investigation and get back to you if I discover an anything. You should email the people at Discover Card as they probably know..

Rocky,.

Have your mom send a CMRR letter to the CU asking for verification of the lates along with the Ford letter. After they sign for it, send the Bureau's a letter disputing the lates. If they verify once again, gather all documentation for evidence and sue the CU for FCRA violations. What state does your mom live in?.

BY..

I would file a complaint with the OTS, Office of Thrift Supervision. make sure you send copies of the letter from ford. I would write a letter to the CU requesting investigation of these lates. Specifically ask them to explain why the lates were listed when the dealership has acknowledged negligence. this is a 623 dispute, basically..

I don't know who you have been talking to a the CU, but keep it in writing with CMRRR from now on because you may need to sue them...

WHY CAN'T THE MORTGAGE LOAN COMPANY ACCEPT THE "NOT YOUR FAULT" LETTER AS.

FACT.

AND TAKE THAT INTO ACCOUNT???.

This post has been edited by.

GEORGE.

: 17 January 2010 - 09:40 PM..

Sue who? The credit union? Why? Technically, they are well within their rights to report the lates. I think it's crappy of them to continue to do so, but the responsibility for payment is technically the OP's regardless any other factors..

If anybody gets sued, it should be the Ford dealer... for real damages..

Having said that, I would go up the chain of command at the CU and work for goodwill...

Ok, thank you. The CMRR is the next step..

She lives in Pennsylvania...

I don't know, I will have to ask my Mom if she presented the letter to them..

I'm going to tell her to keep going up the CoC and detail the person spoken to and any relevant information for the CMRR letter..

And I'm going to see if she's willing to go after the Ford dealer. It's been two plus years, but this thing is just now starting to haunt her...

Consult a NACA attorney....I believe that's the way to get pointed in the most desirable direction......

Remember, the CU has all their money. We a talking about the fact that they are publishing this information in a way that punishes the customer for the dealer's negligence. the CU can remedy this without effort or expense, so saying it isn't technically incorrect will not save them. Is there some way the customer could have prevented this( please tell me because I hope this never happens to me).

I agree it is legally complicated but Ford did as they should and documented the mistake in a letter..

But let's dial it back.

Please op, your mother needs to mail the letter to CU CMRRR. They will deny that she hand delivered it. Then complain about this to the FDIC, and the OTS...

Ummm...yea, very easily...made the payments that were due. Once the dealer payoff hit, the CU would have refunded the extra money. I bought 2 vehicles on Nov 30th of 2009. Payoffs didn't hit until a week ago. Had I not made my December payments I would have 30 day late right now. Instead I just got a check from my CU for ~$850 due to overpayments..

Also, the timelines seem a little off. Vehicle bought on Oct 13th, 90 days past due in December. This would mean that the loan was past due when the OP traded in the vehicle. With a history of late payments I can see why the CU would continue to report the lates..

Yes the dealership should have paid this vehicle off faster, but I can see at least partial responsibility on the part of the OP..

This post has been edited by.

Jtoast.

: 18 January 2010 - 09:58 AM..

Partial maybe but how were they told to make the payments..

I think that the gray area is why the OTS could help here..

This post has been edited by.

Cinnamngrl.

: 18 January 2010 - 09:59 AM..

If your payment is due on the 15th and you don't see the payoff, make the payment to avoid a late...not sure why anyone would need to be told that...to me it seems like it would be common sense..

This post has been edited by.

Jtoast.

: 18 January 2010 - 10:02 AM..

Well, the OP can give up or try the OTS...

In my opinion, the OP doesn't have anywhere to go on this one. The lates were valid so the CU has the right to report them..

They could try to pursue a case against the dealership, but there are no actual monetary damages yet. Now if the OP can prove that his mother is receiving a higher interest rate/being denied solely due to the dealers negligence, then he would have somewhere to go on this...and even then it would probably cost more than it's worth to fight. Unfortunately, I would be very surprised if this is the only negative item on her report..

My suggest would be for the OP to write a really really polite goodwill letter explaining that the OP did not realize that he/she was still responsible for the payments and claim "lesson learned, won't happen again.".

EDIT:.

Even if this was cost effective to fight, by the time it's done, the mortgage issue would be long resolved. I would think that if this WAS the only negative on her report, a copy of the letter from Ford explaining the situation would be enough to warrant them overlooking these items..

This post has been edited by.

Jtoast.

: 18 January 2010 - 10:25 AM..

Just noticed this after I could no longer edit.....

If it's been 2+years, you will need to check the SOL in your state to see if you still have the ability to file suit...

I will have to go back and dig out my records to see if my dates are exactly correct....

I did not provide all of the information in regards to the hell I had with that dealership because the post was getting long; but I will elaborate a little bit..

1. I was about $7K upside down on my Expedition. I owed 14K and they agreed to give me 7K and I would carry the other 7K as negative equity into the new loan. I put $2500 down, as they requested, and signed a contract. I left the Expedition at the dealer, signed papers on the new truck, and drove away..

A week later the dealership called and said they could not get my loan approved through CapOne without an additional $2500. They said that when the papers were submitted and reviewed it was kicked back. I said no way and argued for awhile. They called back and said that if I could put an additional $1K down, I'd be ok..

Looking back, this was my first auto deal done on my own and I should have armed myself with more knowledge. But I was naive and said OK. So I took an additional grand into them and they re-did all paperwork. This was two weeks later (approx)..

But I was so happy to be relieved of that Expedition and it's negative equity that I did what they wanted. Despite the headaches and hours at the dealership, I wanted my damn truck and wanted to get rid of the Expedition..

2. The original salesmen (there were two) ended up getting fired because they made a bad deal. The truck I bought was traded in that day by my best friend (he bought a brand new one). It was a two year old F-150 with only 10K miles on it and I knew it's history..

They gave him $19.9K on the trade-in..

In order for them to live up to the deal their salesmen (and manager) made, they had to carry the $7K of negative equity into the loan. I was only approved for in the neighborhood of $25K from CapOne. So in order to make the deal work, they had to sell me the truck they just paid my friend $19K for, at roughly $14K. The additional 4K on the loan entailed interest and fees (warranty, etc)..

In hindsight they were trying their damndest to reneg on the deal, I think. So they dragged their feet at a painful pace..

I was in constant contact with the Credit Union. I was in constant contact with the sales manager. I told the Credit Union the situation and that I simply could not afford to make a $550 payment because I had just plunked down $3500 cash for a down payment, moved half way across country and started a new job..

They were understanding (the CU) and said that it wasn't a problem and they would get after the dealership. This round of charades continued for weeks. CU called me, I called them, I called Ford, CU called Ford...all the while no pay off check was sent..

The dealer made up excuse after excuse. Promise after promise. By this time, and it was wrong in hindsight (but money was still tight), it came down to principle...I was NOT going to make two payments. Especially when Ford kept saying the payment was on it's way. I had a signed deal with Ford..

It came to a head with the CU calling me saying they were going to repo the Expedition. We then had a pleasant three way conversation between me, Ford and the CU. Only after did the CU threaten to come hook that Expedition up to a repo truck did Ford get the check air-mailed out and provided me and the CU with a tracking number..

This was a mess. And I'm not even going into the whole detailed story!.

And yeah, this is basically the only blemish on my Mom's credit that I know of. Or at least the only thing the mortgage guy told her would hinder the process..

I feel powerless because my Mom does not know much about credit repair or what to do. She left the CU on Saturday in tears because she could not get this resolved..

Had I known then what I know now A LOT of things would have been handled differently - starting with me researching that dealership and seeing how terrible they have been..

But here we are in the now and I can't change anything except try to help my Mom get this fixed since I was essentially the cause of it. I should have made the payments until the check was sent. But they kept saying it was on the way and I was always in contact with the CU, I never hid anything...

I still say there's not a lot you can do here. The lates.

Were.

Valid so the CU isn't at fault (although the word of the employee should carry some weight in a goodwill letter I would think.) In fact, they could be considered to be the only party involved who is not at least partially at fault..

The negligent party here is the dealership and you imho. They were late on the payoff and you were late on the payments..

Unless the CU is willing to do you a favor, those lates are probably staying. As I said before, best chance is to give the letter from Ford to the underwriter explaining the situation and see if they will make an exception and fund the loan, possibly at a higher interest rate..

If they refuse, then at that point you may have actual monetary damages to pursue. The downside is that the dealership is probably going to argue that yes, they made a mistake, but by refusing to mitigate your damages (make the late payments), you were at least partially responsible..

All in all, it's a bad situation but I don't see a lot you can do to fix it..

This post has been edited by.

Jtoast.

: 19 January 2010 - 10:30 AM..

You do realize you're not "rid of" the negative equity in the Expedition, right?? You rolled it into the new loan. You're now out 25k+the 3.5k you put down for a total of 28k. Sure, you have a newer, nicer vehicle, but you're still upside down. If the dealership gave your friend 19.9k for your current truck when he was trading up to a brand new truck, the wholesale value of your current truck is probably in the neighborhood of 17.5k..

And what is the "interest and fees" you reference that total 4k?? You don't pay interest up front on a loan. CANCEL the warranty ASAP. You own a two year old truck with 10k that still has tons of factory warranty left! If you wish to purchase an extended warranty when the factory one expires, that's your prerogative, but do you see how it's not financially wise to be paying (with Discover card) interest now on a product that's not going to kick in for several years? The only "fees" you should have had to pay are the tax difference between the two vehicles and registration and tags...

Not to mention the dealership probably charged you full retail on the warranty. When I bought my Ford van, I simply googled "Ford Warranty" and picked an out of state dealer who sold me a factory warranty over the web for less than 1/3 of what the dealership wanted...not only that, but they let me make zero interest payments on the balance (with no credit check) but the warranty went into effect immediately...

Keep pressing it up the chain of command. They CAN remove them as a matter of Member Service. They don't have to - the lates are definitely valid - but they CAN..

I would call and ask for the manager, director, or VP of Consumer Lending. Start there..

This post has been edited by.

Snookums.

: 17 January 2010 - 04:54 AM..