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I am a co-signer on Auto Lease. My joint acct holder missed a payment and I was not notifi

 
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  • Answered by:Alex Esquire
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Customer Question

I am a co-signer on Auto Lease. My joint acct holder missed a payment and I was not notified by the lendor. I am trying to clear this item on my credit bureau. Shouldn't FCRA cover me?

 

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State/Country relating to question: United States

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I contacted lendor and disputed, I filed credit bureau dispute, and I filed a BBB dispute in TX. Nissan-Infiniti can legitimately show a missed payment so I am not getting anywhere. In their response however they wrote that they would have tried to contact me if my joint acct holder hadn't paid... he paid eventually so they never contacted me, but 30 day delq still on my bureau.

Submitted: 377 days and 23 hours ago.
Category: Consumer Protection Law
Value: $30
Status: CLOSED
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Expert:  Alex Esquire replied 377 days and 23 hours ago.

Hello. My name is XXXXX XXXXX X will be happy to answer your question.

Did the auto finance company had your current address on file and did you request to have all copies of the billing statements send to you as well?

Customer replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

I moved out of the country (an expat in Korea now) and the mailing address Nissan had on file (my old address) was being auto-forwarded to my GE pouch mail address and GE forwards all mail to me. I did not make a request to have all billing stmts sent to me, but I assumed they would send me any special notices (CITs, Late notice, etc). We pay for a credit alert system and when we received the alert that a 30 day hit our bureau we called Nissan/Inf right away - it went to collector and we paid. At that point I gave them a phone number on which they could call me if any future problems.

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Expert:  Alex Esquire replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

Thank you for your follow up.

Unfortunately, since the auto finance company really had no way of getting the billing statement to you on time, you would not be able to get the 30 day mark deleted from your credit report under the FCRA, however your best bet would be to simply keep on disputing this report with all 3 credit reporting agency and the auto finance company will only have 30 days to verify this 30 day past due mark as valid and it is more than likely that they will fail to verify it at some point and it will get automatically deleted.

Customer replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

Thank you: two follow-up questions...

 

-I will check, but I'm pretty sure they had my email address on file and that did not change... if I can verify they did have it would that change my position?

 

-I have in writing from them (in their BBB response) that they did not even attempt to reach me - they didn't know I had moved so they had no way of knowing that it would take longer for mail to reach me. I didn't noticy them of move because I was still getting all my mail from my old address.

 

Thanks again

 

 

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Expert:  Alex Esquire replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

Thank you for your follow up.

1) Unfortunately no, as the lender/creditor only has to mail a written notice to any party responsible for the loan to the address the lender has on file.

2) Basically, in this case, they only have to notice you if the bill is past due, since they were not sending the copies of the bill to you and even if they did the monthly bill would not show a delinquency, until the past due notice.

I wish I could provide you with a more favorable answer, but generally most lenders do not really care about any 30-60 days delinquency and you are likely will be able to get them deleted by simply disputing them with the credit bureaus.

Customer replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

I hope I'm not being annoying... I will definitely pursue continued diputes per your suggestion... but one more thing on #2 above. You said they have to notice me if bill is past due... but they didn't. They didn't send a past due notice to the address they had on file for me. Still no-go? I wouldn't be so picky except we are about to move back and will be applying for mortgages next month.

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Expert:  Alex Esquire replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

Thank you for your follow up.

You are not being annoying and I am happy to follow up with you as long as it takes.

You can challenge them on their failure to properly notify you on the creditor's failure to timely notify you of the past due balance.

I would suggest that you contact the lender in writing and it would be even more effective if you have a local consumer protection law attorney send a letter to this auto finance company and demand for the 30 day mark to be corrected.

Customer replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

Thank you - I live in Korea so would it be best to find an Attorney in TX (since that's their HQ)? Or does it not really matter? Also, any idea what the range of fees could be for a consumer protection law attorney to send a letter on my behalf? thx.

Accepted Answer

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Expert:  Alex Esquire replied 377 days and 22 hours ago.

Thank you for your follow up.

You can actually consult and retain a consumer protection law attorney in Texas and the cost for a fairly simple letter and possible several phone calls should not exceed $1,000 or possibly even be less.

You can find an experienced and licensed local Texas Consumer Protection attorney by using these well-trusted and reliable attorney information/referral websites:

www.martindale.com
www.justia.com
www.lexmundi.com
www.lawyers.com

Expert TypeAttorney at Law
Category: Consumer Protection Law
Pos. Feedback: 95.1 %
Accepts: 451
Answered: 5/2/2012

Experience: Experienced Licensed Attorney

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