# BMW uses Experian ONLY?!



## Michael @ BMW Seattle (Mar 5, 2016)

Ninong said:


> It no longer provides scores? When that happen? I haven't pulled mine in about 8 years but the last time I did, they charged you about $7.95 extra to add your score to the free credit report.


Yes, that parts the same. You have to pay to get the score after you have reviewed your report.

~M~


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## namelessman (Dec 23, 2004)

Ninong said:


> It no longer provides scores? When that happen? I haven't pulled mine in about 8 years but the last time I did, they charged you about $7.95 extra to add your score to the free credit report.


To be specific, credit scores are not part of free credit reports.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

namelessman said:


> To be specific, credit scores are not part of free credit reports.


Right, they never were. The report is free once a year but you have to pay extra for the score.


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## tturedraider (Nov 11, 2005)

turpiwa said:


> What do you mean over 60's are taboo?


Quick answer - accounts over 60 days late.


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## turpiwa (Jun 13, 2005)

Ninong said:


> On any account, if you make your monthly payments on time, your account will be rated "as agreed" in the credit file. In fact, the dealer can see exactly how you paid your payments, month by month, and see exactly when you might have been over-30, or over-60, or even over-90. What that means is that the payment was still not received more than 30 days after the due date, or more than 60 days, etc.
> 
> Even payments that are late enough to get hit with a late fee do not show up in the credit file. They have to be over-30 days late to show up. However, the financial institution that carries the account knows exactly how many late charges were assessed against that account and that can be a problem when the account has a lot of late fees even though it was never over-30.
> 
> If a customer has a previous auto loan or lease and it has only one over-30, then that's not so bad. Just a small deduction. However, if it has four over-30's and one over-60, then that is a serious problem as far as an auto-adjusted score is concerned.


Oh. Duh! I thought you meant over 60 Years Old


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

Ninong said:


> ...when you might have been over-30, or over-60, or even over-90. What that means is that the payment was still not received more than 30 days after the due date, or more than 60 days, etc.





turpiwa said:


> Oh. Duh! I thought you meant over 60 Years Old


Nope. You must have been reading it late at night or something and didn't see my explanation that was in the same post.


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## turpiwa (Jun 13, 2005)

Ninong said:


> Nope. You must have been reading it late at night or something and didn't see my explanation that was in the same post.


Yes I was


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## imtjm (Oct 5, 2004)

Pstassi117 said:


> I am 28yrs old, never been late on anything, ever. I make a decent living and watch my scores closely. My experian is low because it's mixed up with someone else's report. Someone with my same name. I was able to prove it to the dealership. What bothers me most is that I know the first dealership would use the highest score. This second dealership seems like a bunch of liars. December 30th 2016 I leased a 320i X drive with a .00130 MF and now for a 328i x drive m sport I have an MF of .00150 or .00155? Something along those lines. it's my fault for taking the deal. I'm so pissed off, I want to make a formal complaint. I'm in sales and know how customers could be but he made me wait two weeks for this car and didn't return my calls after telling me it would be three days. Then the payment goes up in price bc they can't use my higher credit score. This place is a scam.


I don't know if I'm amused or confused by all your comments. I guess the first obvious question is have you filed a dispute with Transunion, and if not why not, because no lender is under the obligation to take your word for something that is being officially reported by the credit reporting agency(ies).

Second, you are treating each reporting agency's proprietary score equally, when the proprietary scores differ. They have different scales and different information in evaluating their proprietary scores. Even FICO is different and the three reporting agencies' VantageScore is even different.

Financial institutions are actually under no obligation to use any credit score, and do not have to use a particular one you demand it uses over any other In fact, I have never heard of a financial institution accepting a higher credit score from one reporting agency rather than using the lowest score or an average of the scores. From a risk management point of view, it does not make sense when they are doing the final underwriting to take the highest score when there is something reported in another score driving the score down.

Last, you seem to be angry at BMWFS for a decision based on YOUR credit reports. If there is a problem with YOUR credit report, the onus is on you to fix the credit report, not BMWFS or anyone else. Sorry, you are angry and feel screwed by this place over an error in YOUR credit report. Seems to me the first thing to do is to actually fix your credit report if you don't want the lowest score driving down your ability to obtain the top tier products. I'm amused that you say you were in credit, but didn't get the problem resolved before trying to obtain financing. If you do work in credit, is it your company's policy to base a borrower's highest score when lending? I highly doubt it. Having had issues in my credit reports, especially stuff reported that were not mine but someone with a same name, it was very easy to submit a dispute with all three reporting agencies and get a quick turn around.

Also, these days, almost every credit card company and bank offers free FICO if you have an account. Granted, there are like 49 different versions of FICO scores with each reporting agency having their own proprietary scores along with their combined score to compete with FICO.


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## imtjm (Oct 5, 2004)

Ninong said:


> Right, they never were. The report is free once a year but you have to pay extra for the score.


all three reports are free once a year, one each from reporting agency. You can get scores from just about any bank or credit card you hold an account with these days. Again, though, there are like 49 different scores out there, and lenders/financiers are under no obligation to choose one over the other or use a single vice an average, etc.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

imtjm said:


> all three reports are free once a year, one each from reporting agency. You can get scores from just about any bank or credit card you hold an account with these days. Again, though, there are like 49 different scores out there, and lenders/financiers are under no obligation to choose one over the other or use a single vice an average, etc.


Those scores are not auto-adjusted scores. The ones he would get from a bank are credit card-adjusted scores and likely to be slightly higher than auto-adjusted scores.

The OP knows it's his responsibility to clean up his own credit report but what he wanted to know was whether he could make BMWFS ignore Experian and accept either of the other two credit-reporting companies' scores, which are higher. He can't because that decision is obviously up to the credit grantor.

In the case of BMWFS, it is their policy to use Experian as their primary source. However, they will usually consider higher scores from either of the other two credit-reporting companies and usually set the credit tier based on the higher score but that decision is entirely theirs. In the OP's case, there is a wide disparity between Experian and the others and the BMW Center has informed him that BMWFS set his credit tier as tier 2. We do not know if that claim is true or not. It's just what he was told by the BMW Center.

The money factor used was .00155, which could be either a .0002 markup of the Tier 1 buy rate of .00135 or it could be the actual Tier 2 buy rate of .00155 with no markup. It's really a very good money factor either way and in my personal option the OP should just relax and forget about it but that's entirely up to him. BMWFS allows the dealer to mark up the buy rate by .0004 to earn finance reserve. So even a Tier 1 approval could still allow the BMW Center to use a money factor of .00175.

In the meantime, I'm sure he is working on getting his Experian file cleaned up but that can take at least two or three months.


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## alewifebp (Sep 20, 2008)

The OP can also work with some NY area sponsors. While that doesn't guarantee that they will be able to use one score over another, at least you will know they are working on the level and will most likely provide a better price to boot.

In my experience, BMW, and I'm sure other automotive captive lenders, value previous car payment history very highly. I've been leasing for over 15 years and have been granted the highest tier during my time with BMW. So if you are going to pay one bill on time, pay the car lease.


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## imtjm (Oct 5, 2004)

Ninong said:


> Those scores are not auto-adjusted scores. The ones he would get from a bank are credit card-adjusted scores and likely to be slightly higher than auto-adjusted scores.
> 
> The OP knows it's his responsibility to clean up his own credit report but what he wanted to know was whether he could make BMWFS ignore Experian and accept either of the other two credit-reporting companies' scores, which are higher. He can't because that decision is obviously up to the credit grantor.
> 
> ...


As I said, the creditor dictates what report if any to consider when underwriting. As I also wrote, there are some 49 different scores to include auto-adjusted scores. I disagree about the assumption of his understanding it's his responsibility for cleaning up his credit reports, since he is complaining BMWFS is possibly, and more than likely, basing decision on the lowest or average score. Really, he should not be surprised if BMWFS or any creditor is not going to give him top consideration if there are issues in his credit report impacting his scores. This is something he should have known before going into applying for terms.


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## Michael @ BMW Seattle (Mar 5, 2016)

As I stated previously, based on what the OP offered for info, I believe the dealer is the one that made the call, not BMWFS. Too much emphasis here on the OP cleaning up his credit. The difference in the scores can be one item not reported to TU.


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

imtjm said:


> As I said, the creditor dictates what report if any to consider when underwriting. As I also wrote, there are some 49 different scores to include auto-adjusted scores. I disagree about the assumption of his understanding it's his responsibility for cleaning up his credit reports, since he is complaining BMWFS is possibly, and more than likely, basing decision on the lowest or average score. Really, he should not be surprised if BMWFS or any creditor is not going to give him top consideration if there are issues in his credit report impacting his scores. This is something he should have known before going into applying for terms.


It is my assumption that he did receive the benefit of the highest FICO score from BMWFS and that the dealership marked it up by a modest .0002 points to .00155. That would still be an excellent money factor for a lease. It would represent either a .0002 mark-up to the Tier 1 buy rate of .00135 or it could represent the actual buy rate of .00155 that is the base for Tier 2.

In my experience with them (for a very long time) they could always be persuaded to accept the highest score unless there was something brand new (like a recent repo) in Experian that had not yet shown up in the other two reports. It's still their call to make and only if they believe Experian is correct and the matter is of substantial concern would they stick with a lower score.

The OP came out just fine, in my opinion. He is upset because he didn't get the actual Tier 1 buy rate, which he expected to be .00130, like it was several months back, but it has been rising since then. It jumped from .00132 to .00135 just a couple of months back and before it was .00132 it was .00131 and before that it was .00130. I think he should relax and I'm sure that if he has been following all of this conversation he has a better understanding of what probably happened.

He knows there is junk in his Experian file that hasn't been removed yet and he's working to get that fixed. He obviously does not have a credit problem because his other scores are much better than Experian and both of them qualify him for Tier 1 approval, which is what he probably received from BMWFS. Maybe the person at the dealership told a little white lie?


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## Pstassi117 (Mar 12, 2016)

Michael and Ninong understood exactly what I was saying. Imtjm, yes I understand that my credit file is my problem and the poor experian score should be fixed. But the first time around BMW allowed me to use my Transunion score knowing that It was my best score. Clearly they used my Transunion again and jacked up my money factor. And yes, I decide which credit file we will review but ONLY after we pull equifax. Equifax is my company's first choice but we will review any of the three bureaus. 

Thank you Michael and Ninong for your responses. Yes I have been following and yes I now understand what happened and I'm not nearly as angry since I still got a tier 1 MF.

Thanks again to everyone else who responded and tried to help.


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## Michael @ BMW Seattle (Mar 5, 2016)

Pstassi117 said:


> Michael and Ninong understood exactly what I was saying.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone else who responded and tried to help.


:thumbup:


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