Posted by Kevin

Should I have known better? Would those extra two months really have made a significant difference or would I have been in the same place?

Here is how it all started, my wife at the time and I went shopping for a new car for her. The lease on the BMW X3 had just ended and she was ready for another one. I however was looking for something that was a little lighter on the wallet and a bit friendlier at the pump. So I started shopping online for the best lease deal that I could find, filling in my information at about four “get a quote” type sites. Two of them were the majors and the other two were a little off the beaten path.

All of the sites followed up with me, the dealers called me up – ran my credit and gave me some quotes. I went and did a couple test drives but ultimately I did not end up buying from the Internet dealers, they were just out of my price range. One of the dealers was a little pushy and he said that I had A+ credit and that they were willing to do a deal.

A few months later I went to the Mazda dealership to look at and eventually lease the 2007 Mazda CX-7 crossover SUV. While I was at the dealer they ran my credit and this time it was in the low 600′s and that it showed some automotive late payments. What! My 1997 Ford Explorer has been paid off for six years and the BMW is on auto payment. Something must be wrong. At first I thought that it was the new house that we purchased and it was reflecting badly on my credit, but the guy in finance was sure that it was a mixture of auto late payments and open store credit card balances.

I should have just stopped the application right there but the BMW was due back in three days and I had my wife co-sign on the lease. We signed and then we were out of there with her new car.

The next morning I tried to figure out what was going on but the big question was “where to start?” I called Equifax and TransUnion and ordered a copy of my credit report, I wanted to see what my score was and what was affecting my credit. I figured I am savvy internet user, how long can this possibly take? I figured a few days to get this all straightened out.

The record showed that I had applied for and received store credit with Best Buys and a store card from Nordstrom’s, both of which were significantly past due. But hey at least I had new clothes and a new flat screen TV plus all the extras.

I was now over 90 days late with both payments and the outstanding balance was just a little over $7300.