Consumer complaint received 2021-08-30
Company: BMW Financial Services NA, LLC
State: TX
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Lease
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account information incorrect

Complaint:
In XXXX I wrote to the Dispute department requesting they investigate a payment being reported late to the credit reporting agencies for my account with BMW Financial Services ( BMWFS ). I received a response that is unsatisfactory and am concerned that BMWFS is continuing to report a late payment that was missed through no fault of mine. While it is true that the payment was made 41 days past its due date, the reason the payment was late was due to some sort of systemic failure on the part of BMWFS, and not due to my negligence or carelessness ; therefore, I should not be subjected to the punitive consequences that come from BMWFS reporting a late payment on my good credit to the credit reporting agencies. Due to BMWFSs improper handling of my dispute, I believe they have violated provisions of both the Fair Credit Reporting Act ( FCRA ) and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. 

Therefore : I am formally expressing dissatisfaction with the way BMWFS handled my credit dispute, and further assert that they were not compliant with certain provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act during their investigative process ; and I am asserting that BMWFS has violated provisions of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. 

In XXXX I provided BMWFS with a letter explaining what I believed to have happened regarding my XX/XX/2021 payment. In summary, I set up automatic payments through the BMWFS website, received confirmation of said automatic payment enrollment, yet the automatic payment for XXXX was not deducted from my account. I further informed BMWFS that I had not received any of their communication attempts due to their contact attempts via email being intercepted by my email providers spam filter. I provided supporting documentation in the form of a printed email confirmation following enrollment into the automatic payment system that indicated my next payment would be automatically deducted in XXXX. Upon completion of these steps, I was under the impression that the automatic payments were correctly set up and had confirmation that the next payment would be deducted in XXXX for the payment due in XXXX. Any reasonable person would believe that there would be no further issue processing account payments from that moment forward. 

Given this, I again assert that the payment missed in XXXX was through no fault of my own and completely out of my control. BMWFS can not report my XXXX payment as late because of what I can only assume is some systemic problem on their end that prevented my payment from being properly processed. 

BMWFS is currently still reporting my XX/XX/2021 payment as past due, when they should have knowledge to the contrary based on documentation I provided with my formal dispute. However, BMWFS failed to acknowledge all of the information I provided with my dispute, which also violates the FCRA. 

623 ( a ) ( 7 ) ( E ) ( ii ) specifically mandates that furnisher review all relevant information provided by the consumer. The response I received from BMWFS goes into great detail about what their records indicate ( i.e., when I accessed my MyBMW.com account ), yet it is silent on the fact that I provided written evidence in the form of a printed confirmation screen received from its system. I do not know whether BMWFS reviewed this very relevant information or not. This confirmation is my only evidence that I correctly set up automatic payments. It also serves to prove that I had assurance that BMWFS would correctly process my XX/XX/2021 payment, just as any reasonable customer would. 

The evidence I provided meets the definition of reasonable cause, therefore, I have provided BMWFS with sufficient information to determine that the late payment was not my fault. As the late payment was clearly not my fault, the information being reported regarding the late payment is inaccurate and must be corrected. 

If BMWFS reviewed this documentation and deemed it to be insufficient, they did not indicate it in their response. If BMWFS is going to assert that data within their system supersedes or negates any printed data provided by a consumer with a dispute, then they should indicate that and provide an explanation as to why they would choose to ignore relevant information provided by a consumer and instead favor their internal system, which from my perspective, is faulty and the reason for this entire issue. In short, it would be unfair to simply dismiss documentation provided by a consumer and fall back on your own systems data integrity. It is a safe harbor that doesnt exist when it comes to harming a consumer financially, which BMWFS has done. When these contradictions occur ( ambiguity between a consumers evidence and a creditors records ), the creditor should decide in favor of the consumer to reduce or eliminate consumer harm. 

Lastly, the response I received from BMWFS dated XX/XX/2021, state the following : Although we certainly regret you were not receiving our contact attempts, any efforts to contact you were done as a courtesy and contacting you directly is not required by BMW Financial Services prior to reporting your account to the consumer reporting agencies. T

his statement appears to be at odds with Section 623 ( a ) ( 7 ) of the FCRA and should raise a red flag re : BMWFS 's ability to comply with the FCRA. Section 5 of the FTC Act states that an act or practice is unfair when it ( 1 ) causes or is likely to cause substantial injury ( usually monetary ) to consumers, ( 2 ) can not be reasonably avoided by consumers, and ( 3 ) is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition. 

BMWFS is committing an unfair act in reporting my account past due for XX/XX/2021. As noted above, I have provided reasonable cause as to why I believe the information BMWFS is reporting is inaccurate. Furthermore, I have explained that BMWFSs response to my initial dispute dismisses evidence that I provided ( or favors their own evidence over mine, it is unclear and was not articulated either way ). Because of this, BMWFS is being unfair to me by causing harm or substantial injury that I can not reasonably avoid. The harm is coming in the form of damaging my credit by reporting a late payment which results in a lower credit score and the corresponding associated punitive measures ( e.g., less favorable loan terms with creditors ). Specifically, because of this I was unable to qualify for refinancing my mortgage to a lower interest rate. Had BMWFS correctly reported my payment history, my credit score would likely be higher and allow me to qualify. While no one really knows what factors affect the credit reporting agencies scoring models, it is commonly understood that a missed payment has a negative impact to ones credit. 

This is unavoidable because I have no control over how BMWFS conducts credit dispute investigations. Nor do I currently have any understanding as to why they ignored reasonable evidence concerning my dispute. When these contradictions occur ( ambiguity between a consumers evidence and a creditors records ), the creditor should decide in favor of the consumer to reduce or eliminate consumer harm.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation