Consumer complaint received 2020-07-26
Company: Home Loan Center, Inc.
State: FL
Product: Vehicle loan or lease
Sub-product: Loan
Issue: Getting a loan or lease
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising or marketing

Complaint:
The previous complaint 's " resolution '' did not address my issue whatsoever. 

My claim was that I was not presented privacy disclosures when navigating their website to fill out a loan inquiry. 

Please carefully review the attached screen ( in image format ) that they are discussing, as it is seen on the computer I used to fill out the application, and compare it to this response. As you can see, there is no consent disclosure clearly visible on the screen, and it is not only possible, but likely that someone would navigate through that step without even being aware of this disclosure. 

Per GLBA, this disclosure must be " clear and concise ''. LendingTree has failed to present the disclosure as such. https : //www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/how-comply-privacy-consumer-financial-information-rule- gramm # obligations Their response is therefore misleading and incorrect : Provided on the Auto Loan request page is the following consent disclosure which explains how the information  is being used. By clicking on the button above, you consent, acknowledge, and agree to the following : Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and to receive important notices, and other communications electronically. We take your privacy seriously. You are providing express written consent to share your contact information with up to five ( 5 ) Network partners, and for LendingTree, auto dealers, broker and authorized third parties to contact you ( including through automated means ; e.g. autodialing, text and pre-recorded messaging ) via telephone, mobile device ( including SMS and MMS-charges may apply ) and/or email, even if your telephone number is currently listed on any internal, corporate, state, federal or national Do-Not-Call ( DNC ) list. See Auto Finance TCPA. By providing the last 4 digits of your Social Security Number, you are providing express written consent under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for LendingTree, LLC and its partners to verify your information and obtain your credit profile from one or more of the three major credit bureaus. Upon submission of this request and verification of your information, LendingTree, LLC will provide your full Social Security Number, as well as other information provided by you, to up to 5 Network partners as an application for credit or as a pre-qualification request. These partners may perform a hard pull of your credit to provide you with firm offers of credit. I have provided the link to Terms of Use for further information. https : //www.lendingtree.com/legal/terms-of-use. 

I was under the impression that this was the federal branch that handled this law, and consumer privacy in general. Their site is specifically designed for people to not be able to see what should legally be " clear '', yet the only response is to point me back at the site owner, who tells me " well technically it's there if you look for it, '' and that is an okay response? 

Sites that deal with much less sensitive private data have no trouble forcing the user to read a policy before they explicitly opt-in. Forcing that seems slightly out of the reach of the law, but this specific instance, where the policy is not even displayed at times, is clearly not.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation