Bought car with 550 score! Low rate!

[carajul]

I just had a house go into foreclosure and my credit score has gone from 780 to 550. My car died and I had to buy another one, so opted for a new one in the $20k range.

When they ran my credit it was bleak. They said I'd qualify, BUT my APR would be 15%.

After some discussion the sales supervisor told me that literally every person walking in the door has a foreclosure on their report, so some banks, especially smaller local ones, are not looking at the FICO score. They are reading the text report and ignoring the foreclosure. All my current accounts are paid as agreed and out of 50 accts I have on my report since I was 18 years old the only bad one is the foreclosure.

Well, Chase Bank approved me and after some haggling with the salesman I got my new car. FICO score 550, APR 6.5% !!!

I think a lot of this FICO thing is just an excuse for banks to make more money.

[chane]

Wow, that is very uncharacteristic of a bank, especially Chase. Did you have a co-signer?

I guess with 50 positive accounts, and only 1 negative, plus proven income, it may not be that hard to believe. It's pretty rare though.