Buying and selling a car the hard way, a case study
Thursday, April 13
Wednesday evening, my wife commented that is was not a good sign that Meriwest had not emailed me a preapproval loan email. I dismiss the concern. I tell her that now we have leads on the 2016.5 CX-5, I will nail down the credit question in the morning. My plan is to finalize the purchase Thursday evening.
1st Meriwest call
In the morning I call Meriwest to get the status of my loan application. When I give the lady the loan application number, she takes a few moments and then responds, “Oh, yes is this Ken?”
I confirm, and then she matter-of-factly tells me, “Oh, I see, your loan was rejected?”
Stunned.
After taking a few seconds to process this information, I tell her she must have mixed up my paperwork with someone else. I explain I have perfect credit and had an amazing loan from Meriwest just a few years back.
She starts typing away, and then returns to the call. “Here’s the problem. Your application was rejected because you have a Citi credit card that was closed as unpaid and uncollectable.”
I tell her that I don’t have a Citi Visa. There must be a mistake. She apathetically tells me that is what she is seeing. A Citibank credit card was issued under my name and closed with an unpaid and uncollectable balance of $380. She recommends that I contact Citibank to inquire on the issue. Realizing this conversation was at an impasse, I hang up and start doing some research.
I go to one of these free credit score sites, and lo and behold, I see the Citi credit card problem the Meriwest agent mentioned.
Citi and CostCo = messy customer transition
I call Citi to figure out what the heck happened with this mystery credit card. The Citi lady looks at my record. She is friendly, and seems empathetic to my dilemma. I tell her that I don’t own a Citi Visa and am baffled by this credit fiasco. She asks whether it is possible that I opened a Citi account or had a CostCo Amex credit card. At the mention of the CostCo credit card question, I tell her that my wife had and may still have a CostCo credit card. She mumbles something about how CostCo Amex customers are now Citi bank Visa card holders. The way she explains this is confusing. She could have avoided a frustrating conversation by clearly stating:
- My credit card was related to the CostCo Amex/Citi Visa transfer. Essentially CostCo discontinued their relationship with Amex and ported all the users over to the Citi Visa CostCo card.
- During the transition, the balance from the CostCo Amex was taken over by Citi, which created confusion for many CostCo credit card customers.
Even after finally getting her to tell me the credit card is question was a CostCo credit card, it still doesn’t add up. I haven’t used a CostCo credit card in over a decade, Citi or Amex. Later I would discover that the issue was coming from inside the house.
The lady read off some purchases including Netflix, Living Social and Road Runner. Nothing I recall ordering, but these transactions sound suspiciously like something my wife might order.
Not sure if somehow my wife was using this card, I was left to do some internal investigation.
2 cards in one wallet + 1 address change + 1 credit card transfer = 100 point deduction to my credit score
When my wife registered for the CostCo Amex credit card, she received one for her and one for me. She used her card regularly. I never used my card.
My theory is that somehow my wife had both Amex cards in her wallet, or at least in her possession. She must have inadvertently used my Amex CostCo card for a few small transactions.
To compound the confusion, we moved in late 2015. It appears that Amex and therefore Citibank had sent bills and statements to our old address.
It turns out that it is hard to pay for bills you don’t receive, particularly when you don’t realize that the charges are being sent for a card you never use.
Source of problem discovered, but solution still unknown
2nd Meriwest call
I call back Meriwest in the afternoon and explain the situation. The lady I talk to is clearly uninterested in my story. She has a, “why are you telling me this, and why should I care” attitude. Realizing that she was not going to volunteer any assistance to get my credit application resolved, I expressly ask her what she recommends. I imagine her sighing and rolling her eyes as she tells me that she’ll have to check with her loan officer and will have to call me back. No call would be coming. I would have to initiate the inquiry…again.
3rd Meriwest call
Towards the end of the day, I call to check what the loan officer said. My rep says, “Oh yeah, we can’t approve your loan unless you pay the credit card debt and provide a letter with Citibank letterhead showing that the debt has been paid in full”.
Fixing a credit issue is foreign territory for me. I was surprised at the extent of the Meriwest request. Though suspicious that the request is extreme, I give them one last benefit of the doubt. Perhaps this is standard procedure for any loan approval, not just Meriwest. I would later come to find this benefit of the doubt was unwarranted.
Running out of time, there would be no purchase that day. I had a to-do project to tackle in the morning before a purchase could be consumated.
