So I’ve leased a car from an Acura dealership and I’ve been driving it for a little over a month. Everything checked out at the finance stage, and they sent me on my merry way with the car. I made the first payment on the day of the lease, and the second payment a month later to Acura Financial Services.
Today I’ve received a letter from the dealership calling me “Dear Applicant”, and that after carefully reviewing my application for auto financing, that they can’t provide credit to me. It’s worded like I’ve requested financing and they are turning me down. Except that I have all the signed paperwork with me (Lease agreement with both mine and the finance guy’s signatures on it). It also gives me my credit score which is above 775.
I haven’t been able to contact the dealership yet, but what the heck is this? Can a dealership turn a lease down after the facts even after I’ve made 2 payments to Acura???
The dealership accidentally ran your credit application recently for some reason
Something happened when you originally bought the car – maybe you were denied, which generated this letter, but then the F&I manager made a phone call to get you approved. The bank was slow to mail letters like this as they’re low priority
This is a scam
There’s absolutely no way your financing is in jeopardy. The dealership never would have processed the deal without knowing full well they’d get paid.
It happens. It’s called a spot delivery. The F+I folks think they can get the car approved based on credit, but the finance arm rejects it for some reason. Usually happens when the bank is closed on a weekend or at night, and there isn’t anyone to contact.
Alright guys, so I’ve been able to talk to Acura Financial Services. Apparently they’ve had many calls from panicked customers recently about this type of letters. Basically it’s an automated letter that gets sent low priority from one of the credit bureaus when they checked my credit. Apparently, one of the bureaus didn’t like that I didn’t lease a car before, so the bureau turned me down. The dealership approved me anyway because the other bureaus went through. The Acura guy said they are not writing these letters and are working with the bureau to reword or stop send these altogether. The letter really does read like you’re about to get your car repossessed or something!
Sure, but it’s been a whole month. The dealership would have processed that deal on the next business day. Also if there were an actual problem, I doubt a generic non-personal letter would be how they go about it.
This appears to have been solved and just a credit bureau snafu (see my reply above). Still I’m interested in the topic of rejecting a lease after everything is signed? Is that even possible given that the paperwork is a contract?
They did process my lease in the evening on a Friday, but the finance guy said everything was approved through the Acura system and he printed and signed the lease agreement.
It’s not a contract until the bank accepts it. @harryhood is correct in the fact that after a month, there’s probably not a chance that it would be rejected, especially if you have an account #. I overlooked the 1 month thing when i replied. If the bank rejects it, it’s usually within a few days of signing at most. However, yes, it does happen. Further, the dealership could tentatively approve you for tier 1, and the bank decides you’re tier 2.
If that were to happen, you’d have to come back and sign a new contract, or you could back out of the deal altogether.
Remember, the dealership is just a middleman. They base decisions based on their understanding of how the bank approves, as well as your credit history. Ultimately the bank has to accept the contract though, and they do reject it on occasion when F+I is incorrect in their assumptions.
I’m curious about this happening for leases. Typically when I have applied for a lease, the dealer runs my credit and then if it comes back positive, it gets fed right into the captive application system. The dealer then gets a yes/no on the approval from the captive before a contract is ever submitted to be funded. This generally happens before I ever set foot in the dealer.
So I guess my question is if the captive has already approved me as an applicant, what would change between then and submitting the contract that might have them change their mind?
I’m familiar with spot delivery issues where a dealer thinks they can get someone financed but it doesn’t happen immediately on a purchase.
There should be no or little difference between purchase vs lease. So that could happen, but should within several business days,not a month, And I have no problem drive a car for free though, lol.
happened with me when i bought my first new car, got 3-4 letters from different banks saying my application was denied. Called finance manager , he told me to chill, if the financing would be denied, the dealer would call you first hand before sending in the letter/mail.
they wont ask you to return the car, but will set you up with different financing institution or bank.
I am curious as what options do I have please suggest for this instance I had. So, the dealership had approved my application and other options for leasing a Volvo on Saturday. And was ready to give me car right away on that day with required amount down which I was also already. Since car needed wash and brush up, I requested to pick up on Monday. And by Monday I sold my old car since I was getting new leased car. And now on Monday dealer informs they wouldn’t make the deal unless I make some more down or add co-signer. But on Saturday dealer made me sign all the documents and Vehicle Title Registration, I am worried since I didn’t this would happen as now I sold my old car and ended up with no car. Please suggest what are my options
You can reject the new contract terms and the dealer would have to refund you any money you’ve paid them since the contract you initially signed and agreed to was not funded. Keep in mind, any and all contracts signed by the dealer in leases are subject to the bank’s final approval.
It sounds like the bank would not fund the contract for whatever reason. If that’s the case, tell the dealer no to the new terms and for your money back. Unfortunately there’s no way to get your old car back unless whoever you sold it to is willing to return it to you for their money back or you buy it back from them.
You’re only other option would be to satisfy the dealer terms or go lease a car somewhere else.
Honestly, I would just tell the dealership no and go lease another car somewhere else. I would also probably rent a car in the meantime, but I know that can get expensive.
Depends how much worse the new terms are, personally i’d tell them to pound sand just on principle, return their paperweight and go rent an enterprise/hertz/avis car for a month or two while I seek a new deal.
If you can log into the account online, it’s fine. New auto loan/lease accounts typically take a while to show up on credit reports, (15-60 days after second payment typically). I remember with my second BMW, I got it in the middle of July and it didn’t show up on my credit until October or November. It was really annoying because I was also in the process of buying a house and had to send a lot of documentation in regarding the transaction.
