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A woman who went to a Toyota dealership to buy a car last year alleges staff illegally ran a credit report on her despite her telling them not to, according to a class action lawsuit.
Delaware woman Chanel Rhoads-Reed filed the proposed class action lawsuit against Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A, Inc. Thursday in the District of Delaware, alleging the company’s employees violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when she visited the Koons Lexus dealership in Wilmington last year, and they ran a credit report on her without her permission.
“The false inquiry and obtaining of Plaintiff’s consumer credit report under false pretenses negatively affected Plaintiff’s credit score, and thus negatively affected her credit scores affiliated with said credit reports,” the lawsuit says.
The incident happened on Dec. 3 last year after Rhoads-Reed went to the dealership to potentially buy a car, according to the lawsuit. Rhoads-Reed said she told the Koons Lexus representatives she didn’t want to apply for financing with them and didn’t want the dealership to make any inquiries on her credit.
Despite this, she said the employees “repeatedly attempted to obtain information from [her] under false pretenses” to run a credit check, and then eventually used a made-up social security number of 111-11-111 to make an unauthorized inquiry on her credit score.
“At no time did Defendant obtain authorization, let alone written authorization, from Plaintiff for Defendant to access or make an inquiry on Plaintiff’s consumer credit report,” the lawsuit states.
“In fact, Plaintiff specifically instructed Defendant that she did not want Koons Lexus to pull her credit report or make any inquiries on her credit.”
Afterwards, Rhoads-Reed said the employees refused to let her see the report, and when they finally did, they said she couldn’t leave with it.
She eventually left with the document, after threatening to call the police, but said she later got an email application thanking her for her financial loan application, “even though Plaintiff had never applied for a loan from Koons Lexus.”
Rhoads-Reed is suing Toyota Motor Sales under the FCRA, which says it is only permissible to obtain or use a consumer report with the consumer’s written consent or for a permissible purpose. She is also suing it under the Consumer Fraud Act (CFA), alleging its staff used misrepresentation to obtain her credit report.
Rhoads-Reed is looking to represent anyone whose consumer credit reports were accessed by Toyota Motor Sales without their permission in the last two years. She is seeking an injunction preventing the company from doing the alleged behaviors in the future, a jury trial, damages including $10,000 for each violation of the CFA, costs and attorney’s fees.
Class action lawsuits brought under the FCRA have in the past led to large settlements for consumers.
Earlier this year, Safeway and other defendants agreed to a $2.3 million settlement benefiting certain current and former employees who alleged they obtained background check reports on prospective employees in violation of the act.
Have you ever had a credit report run on you without your consent? Did you know it might be illegal? Let us know in the comments!
Rhoads-Reed is represented by Antranig Garibian of Garibian Law Offices, P.C
The Toyota Motor Sales Credit Check Class Action Lawsuit is Chanel Rhoads-Reed, et. al. v Toyota Motor Sales, U.SA., Inc., d/b/a Koons Lexus, John Does 1-99, Case No. 1:21-cv-00359-UNA, in the United States District Court District of Delaware.
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14 thoughts onToyota Dealership Ran Credit Check Against Woman’s Will, Class Action Lawsuit Claims
Add me, They just ran my credit without my consent.
Went to Toyota on 05/27 to see what option I have if I trade in my Honda and too see how much my down payment would be, long story short, I decided to keep my car. Then on 06/03, I received a email from Experian stating that I open up a new account. So I look into it because I don’t recall opening up a credit card. Found it Toyota open up a credit card for me WITHOUT my permission.
Toyota completely broke the law we left the dealership without our Toyota ran 4 trade in of 6000 and said we’ll send you all paperwork in the mail well they adjusted the price of 3000. Trade in Toyota camry se 2014 we bought was 18995 I talked them into 16995 so we were supposed to finance 10995$ well they sent paperwork with complete fraud never changed anything except less money on our trade in never kept our deal also refused us paperwork and we were walking away from the sale of the vehicle unless given receipt of what’s going on well ill tell you more……
We were very clear that we would NOT be financing anything and would be paying cash, Toyota used our information from a BS document and ran a credit check for financing any way after we already discussed it. We found out by my credit monitoring service notification. They all pointed fingers and denied it, it didn’t magically happen. They claimed it has no negative impact and didn’t really matter. We already bought the car so they didn’t care anymore. This was just 2 years ago.