Want a Car? Bad Credit Won’t Stand on Your Way

When you have bad credit, then you’re probably scratching your head right now, trying to figure out how you can get an automobile loan. But to worry is really not what you should be doing.

According to a field study by J.D. Power & Associates there has been a significant decrease in the FICO score in the credit worth of automobile purchasers this past two months. From the average of 737 in 2009, it has gone down to 725 this 2012. This also led to the decrease in the retail transactions of vehicles from $29,223 by the end of 2011 to $27,953 this February.

The recession that occurred in the United States in 2009 led to the bankruptcy of credit cards in the country, this also affected the sales of vehicle manufacturers. But the impact was not at all that bad since it also paved way for the credit criteria to be less demanding, and the auto industry was able to recover right away. Now, according to the study by Power, those with bad credit have better chances of getting a car compared to those with excellent credit scores.

The D tier, those with 0 to 624 FICO scores have the highest percentage of purchases at 23% compared to last year. The C tier those with score of 625 up to 649 grew at 19%, the B tier with 650-679 increase at 15%, the A tier, those with good credit at 680 to 719 at 11% and the most excellent credit the A+ tier with credit standing of 720 to 999 composed the least percentage at 7%.

As a result of this slide toward the least-able consumers, “C” and “D” buyers combined accounted for 15 percent of all retail sales in the first two months of this year.

Those who composed the C and D tier composed 15% of the retail purchasers in January and February. These customers are young people with lesser money than other car buyers.

This also took as an advantage with the U.S. automobile industry’s drive for creating fuel-efficient cars. These automobiles are less expensive and they will definitely take the retail market by storm.

Transaction price are what people pay for when they purchase new automobiles, other fees just follow. According to TrueCar.com consumers in the United States have spent roughly $30,091 for a single vehicle purchase in March. This estimation is slightly smaller than the price during November last year, and the record of General Motors had for March.

But Power has a different view on events, according to them if transaction prices continue to decrease then there will post a problem for the industry’s profit.

19,000 Children’s Identities Stolen by Thieves Last Year

Identity theft in the internet is a very common crime today. But imagine yourself as a parent checking your child’s credit account, only to find out it contains thousands of dollars’ worth of debts.

Yes, it is possible, in fact according to the Federal Trade Commission about a total of 19,000 innocent children’s identities across the United States have been stolen last year. Talk about stealing candy form a baby.

One victim of this offense is 7 year old Ian Umscheid. According to his parents, the incident started when one of the hard drives of their health care provider went missing.

Though the doubtful purchases made with the stolen identity were detected and reported immediately, the perpetrators were already able to steal an amount close to $15,000. Now, not only does the little boy have a bad credit, he also owes the Bank of America $5,400,the Ally Financial Bank $2,700 and the California jewelry store $4,500.

According to Ian, the perpetrators must have acquired the computer hard drive’s files, found his name and stolen his identity.Children are convenient targets because of their clean record from debt. Not only that, but according to authorities, the crime often gets discovered much later when the child becomes a teenager and would apply for a student financial assistance or other loaning purposes.

Simon Umscheid, Ian’s father, has been a district attorney for 12 years, but this does not exempt his family from the crisis.

If you are a parent, you never want this to happen to your child. Here are some precautions you should take in order to prevent this case. First, never carry around your child’s Social Security number unless it is very important that you do. Second, always watch over your child’s internet activities, you never know who might be taking advantage of them.

Trying to catch these perpetrators is not an easy task. In fact, you can try and trace these people for years but there is no guarantee that you would catch them.

Crime chooses no one. Criminals will strike anyone, in anytime, and in any possible way. Though parents do all they can to protect their child, there are just some dangers that even they can’t prevent.

1.5 Million Credit Blunder by Global Payments

One of credit cards’ worst histories of security breach has occurred this year. Visa and MasterCard users are facing the possibility of having their personal information stolen and according to sources Global Payments was the one to blame.

No records of credit card accounts, Social security numbers, house address and much other information were said to be taken from the archives of the company. However, Global Payments admit that they have been the mishap of the system and they estimated that about 1.5 million of their subscriber’s records have been tapped.

According to the company, though personal info was not taken, the possibility of identity theft and fraud may happen. In 2007, Heartland Payment Systems a company that manufactures swipe machines for credit cards also had their system hacked and 130 million credit cards were affected. For this weakness in their security, they had to pay a $139 million worth of legal charges in 2009, and it is very likely that Global Payments will suffer the same fate.

Visa has already removed the company’s name from its official list of providers; this is until they fix their security system. This does not prohibit Global Payment from delivering its job;though the move momentarily marks them for potential danger. The company expects to be restored in the list after they have updated their safety measures.

Last year, Global Payments had over 2.44 billion dealings with its 800,000 merchants all over the United States, making it rank seventh in the business.

Though investors may become hesitant in investing to the company after the incident, this does not mean that it will run out of business. Heartland, which had its blunders, was able to regain its loss. If Global Payments handles this fine, they will get their name reinstated in Visa’s list in no time.

Dealer, Buyer Argue About Failed Car Financing Plan

At the Texas Truck Headquarters located in San Pedro, Rafael Diaz wanted to buy a 2004 Mazda RX8.

According to Diaz, he gave a down payment of $2,000 on the car. Then, someone told him paying for the balance of the purchase amount would be granted. With that, Diaz drove off with the car.

After a few weeks, someone told him to bring in the car for license plates.

George Alejos of the League of United Latin American Citizens was requested by Diaz to represent him, since he cannot converse well using the English language. Alejos said that a person took the keys and drove off. After 15 minutes of waiting, the same person comes back and says to Diaz that he can already leave because the car was just reposed.

According to Alejos, something went wrong with initial financing plan. The car dealer did not want to return both the car and the down payment.

Moreover, Alejos said that in order to protect the public, these kinds of dealerships must be discontinued.

Jorge Martinez, the General Manager of Texas Truck, settled to meet up with Alejos and Diaz so that they can fix the problem and added that Diaz was only telling a part of the whole story.

According to Martinez, in order to get financing, Diaz presented paycheck stubs that appeared to be printed at home, that the year to date totals was the same in all the paycheck stubs, and that Diaz disliked the condition of being charged higher interest rates because of poor credit.

Also, Martinez said Diaz thought the interest rate was too high for him because it was greater than what he actually intended.

Martinez took the car back because Diaz would not answer calls to redo the financing plan. As a defense, he decided to keep the deposit. They also attempted to let him pay for repossess fees.

Ultimately, the down payment was returned to Diaz and he learned something in car financing.

Normally, dealers allow buyers to take the vehicles if they are sure of the approval of the financing. Still, experts recommend buyers not to take the vehicles unless the financing is completed.

Consumer Protection Law Defends Oregon Collection Agency

In the previous time, if, for instance, you were an Oregonian consumer, with a number of poor credit card balances but were able to withstand until the statute of limitations passed, you were more or less sure of success. However, this may be an unethical way of managing poor debt.

Now, for the month of March, a few changes might have been made to those things.

There are three cases in Oregon that looks as if it indicates a means to a restored option to collect for collection agencies. After incurring credit card charges, delinquent credit card owners can be sued by debt collectors for a maximum of six years. This is in opposition to a preceding decree proposed that in order to be considered off the hook, as you might say, Oregonians had to wait for a maximum of three years.

This latest rule was brought about by three independent consumer cases, all concerning Chase Bank, which is based in Delaware. In Delaware, credit card debt is in a three-year statute of limitations, so when collection agencies purchased the delinquent accounts from Chase, the customers assumed they could sue due to their out-of-stat debts.

Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals in Oregon decided to sustain the six-year statute, despite the signed contract stating the three-year statute of Delaware would be standard.

The change can be seen in the fact that a third-party collection agency purchased the debt. As a result, it initiated a condition in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that hinders collectors from taking legal action from a long distance. The added condition also insists that consumers can be sued by collection agencies in the state in which the consumer lives in.

At the end of the day, it seems weird and appropriate at the same time that a protection law intended for consumers was utilized to defend the rights of a collection agency.