A Wood River car dealership is accused of inappropriately running a customer’s credit score four times without authorization after allegedly pressuring her to buy a vehicle.
Precious Hart filed the complaint Nov. 24 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois against AutoCenters Nissan Inc., alleging violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
According to the complaint, Hart visited the defendant’s Wood River car dealership on Oct. 19, 2019, to purchase a vehicle. She allegedly sat down with one of the defendant’s employees to review her financing options after selecting a vehicle. During the meeting, Hart claims the defendant misrepresented her current income, and she brought this mistake to the employee’s attention. However, she alleges the defendant “pressed forward with the financing options and pressured her to buy the car that day. Plaintiff succumbed to the pressure and purchased the vehicle.”
On Dec. 6, 2019, Hart claims the vehicle began having issues and went to the dealership for repairs. She was allegedly informed by the manager, “Randy,” that he had connections with a bank and could refinance her vehicle at a preferred rate. She claims she gave him permission to speak with the bank but reiterated that her previous documents contained an incorrect income. The suit states that Hart did not authorize, sign or provide consent for the defendant to apply for refinancing on her behalf.
Hart claims she later learned that on Dec. 10, 2019, the defendant ran her credit report four separate times, including “hard inquiries” that were not authorized from CU Lending Systems, First Community FCU, 1st MidAmerica CU, and Scott Credit Union.
“Plaintiff was perplexed, as she only authorized Randy to speak with his connections at a bank, and not to pull her credit, let alone run her credit on four separate occasions, essentially shopping her personal confidential information around to third parties,” the suit states.
“Defendant’s misrepresentations and false certifications resulted in the CRAs releasing highly confidential and sensitive personal information concerning Plaintiff to Defendant and other users,” it continues.
Hart claims the credit unions informed her that the defendant represented to them that she was attempting to purchase a new vehicle, which is not true.
“Defendant had no legitimate business need for plaintiff’s consumer reports at the time that it requested a copy of plaintiff’s credit reports from the CRAs. The four inquiries were recorded on plaintiff’s credit reports and decreased plaintiff’s credit score.”
Hart claims she has suffered invasion of privacy, emotional distress, mental anguish, loss of sleep, and decreased credit scores.
The plaintiff seeks actual damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, court costs and attorney fees.
She is represented by Marwan Daher and Alexander Taylor of Sulaiman Law Group Ltd. in Lombard, Ill.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois case number 3:20-cv-1265