The internet has changed everything. With
a world of information at their fingertips, consumers have more power than
ever. Consumers can do anything from finding love to buying a home online. Car
shoppers have been propelled from in-person haggling at their local dealerships
to thousands of online listings from hundreds of dealers with competitive
up-front pricing in the click of a button from the privacy of their own living
room. The internet, offering consumers access to inventory from dealers across
the nation, has driven car dealers to list their most competitive price online
or be lost in a sea of a thousand dealers offering a better price to anyone
with internet access. Consumers have the power to find the best car at the best
price before even setting foot into a dealership and most dealership activity
has been pushed out of the showroom and onto the internet. You can find a car,
get an appraisal of your trade, sell your car, make your car payment and apply
for credit online. Online credit applications have allowed consumers to get
loan approvals in minutes without having to leave the house, much less fill out
mountains of paperwork hoping to get approved. Consumers can find a car and
dealership, get an offer on their trade, and secure financing all from the
couch. It’s a brave new connected world but people still have plenty of
questions about how online credit applications work.
Is it Safe?
With stories of identity theft almost as
common as Kim Kardashian selfies, consumers are smart to be concerned about
protecting their personal information. In most situations, it is the website
that you need to be worried about, not the submission. Scammers will send you
official looking emails taking you to phony sites set up for the purpose of
stealing your information. You will think that you are getting a great deal
those Captain Kirk and Spock matching salt and pepper shakers that you thought
you were purchasing from William Shatner’s fan site, but in reality the link in
that email sent you a to a scammer’s page hosted in Liberia. For online car
shoppers, the best way to avoid identity theft while is to make sure you are
submitting your application on a trusted site. Use Google local business
listings to verify you are on the actual business’s web site. Its fine for
consumers to research and shop on generic listing sites, but when it comes time
to submit an application or inquiry, go directly to the dealership’s website.
Submitting information to a website that has an actual brick and mortar
location will significantly decrease your chances to become a victim to a scam.
When you are submitting an application for credit, check the web address of the
credit application. It should be HTTP secure. The web address should begin with
“https://ssl” or “https://”. The https://
stands for Hypertext Transfer
Protocol Secure, meaning the dealership uses encryption to collect your
information. HTTPS provides protection against outside hackers gaining access
to your information. It also encrypts collected data to avoid tampering or eavesdropping.
Again, the most fool-proof way to avoid identity theft online is to make sure
you are on the correct site and to make sure that site is connected to an
actual physical business location.
Will Applying For An Auto Loan Hurt My Credit?
Since we primarily work with sub-prime
borrowers, our customers can be even more concerned about damaging their credit
further than a consumer with excellent credit. Our internal credit application
is just that…. internal. Your information is not automatically submitted to any
credit bureau, and we won’t run your credit through any bureau without talking
to you first. Even though during the application process we will run your
credit, it is very unlikely to damage your credit anyway. Check out our blog
post “Will
Shopping Around For A Car Loan Damage My Credit?”
How Long Will It Take?
With companies fighting to make their
product or service faster and faster, you can end up feeling like you’re stuck
in Something About Mary’s “7 Minute Abs” argument. Just when you think someone
has the fastest whatever, someone else comes out with something quicker. One
only needs to study the “time to apply for car insurance” wars between Geico
and Esurance. “It takes you 15 whole minutes to get car insurance?! We can do
that in 7 ½ minutes!” While some things, like getting a car loan, shouldn’t be completed
at a lighting pace, that doesn’t mean you should have to fill out one hundred
required fields to apply for a car loan. Unless you have your employers HR
department’s direct line number handy, you’re going to want to find a dealer
that has a minimum required fields. At our dealership, we have slimmed down our
online credit application to 8 required fields. You can enter as much information
as you want but you won’t be forced to. Our only required information is First
Name, Last Name, Home Phone, Address, Social, Birth date, Employment and
Income. If you have these few pieces of information, we can get you a
preliminary answer.
How Long Until I Get An Answer?
Some dealerships can take up to 48 hours
to process your application…. and that is with excellent turn-around time. At
our dealership, we use an advanced secure processing system that will use your
information to give you a preliminary answer by email within 10 minutes,
guaranteed. With that preliminary approval, one of our salesmen will call you. Our
salesman will obtain any additional information needed to get you your car loan
and will be able to provide you will options for down payment and terms.
How Will I Know I’m Approved
In order to qualify for our guaranteed
answer within 10 minutes, you will need to enter your email address in your
credit application. Shortly after you receive your preliminary answer, you will
receive a phone call from one of our salesman. Once we have obtained your
information, we can determine your loan specifics like down payment, monthly
payment and total loan amount. If you don’t get a phone call within one business
hour of submitting your application, call us!
I Have Terrible Credit. Can I Get Approved?
Bad credit car loans are pretty much all
we do. We have great rates for prime credit customers too but most people who come
to us looking for a loan have already exhausted their first and second (maybe
even third!) chances. We are different because we partner with multiple
sub-prime lending companies, which gives our dealership plenty of options when
dealing with consumers who have bad credit, or no credit or have been through a
bankruptcy, divorce or even a repossession. Above and beyond our partnerships with
our lenders, we also offer in-house Buy Here Pay Here financing for those
especially difficult situations.
Sounds Great! Where Do I Go To Fill Out An Application?
Visit our website at http://www.usedcarworldpa.com/. You can fill
out a credit application, get an instant appraisal of your trade-in, view our
inventory, and learn all about our car loan programs.
