Filling In a Credit Application

Dealers: this is the page to send them

Everything below is written for the customer, so you can forward this link to anybody who gets stuck on the form. Your side of it is Credit Applications.

Your dealer has sent you a link to a credit application. Filling it in takes about fifteen minutes, and you do not have to do it all at once.

Before you start

Have to hand:

• Your driver license.
• Your Social Security number. A lender uses it to look up your credit history; there is no way to apply without one.
• Where you have lived and worked for the last five years, with dates. This is the part people underestimate — approximate months are fine, but you will need the addresses and the employers.
• What you earn, and roughly what you pay each month for housing.
• Two people who can vouch for you and do not live with you, with phone numbers.

Your dealer may have turned some of these off. If a question is not on your screen, they are not asking you for it.

It saves as you go

There is no save button. Each answer is written down as you type it, and the screen says Saved when it has been — or Not saved yet while it is still going.

So you can close the page and come back to the same link later, on the same phone or a different one, and pick up where you stopped. You do not have to finish in one sitting.

Pick your language on the first screen, and the whole form switches. There is also a language chooser at the top right of every screen.

Things that are already filled in

Some answers arrive already there, greyed out — that is what your dealer already has on file for you. You cannot type over them, on purpose: this form does not overwrite their records.

If one of them is wrong, the Not right? beside it lets you say what it should be. That sends your dealer a suggestion — the line then reads “You suggested … — waiting for your dealer” — and they accept or decline it. Keep the one on file backs out.

Your Social Security number

You type it once. After that it is never shown back to you, and it is not shown to your dealer either unless they specifically have permission — and every time somebody looks, we record who and when.

Signing

The last screen lists everything you have entered so you can check it. To finish you have to do two things, and neither is ticked for you:

• Tick I authorize this and everything I entered is true — that is your authorization for the credit check.
• Type your full name to sign.

Then Send my application.

If something is missing, this screen says what and takes you to it. It names the question, not a code.

If two of you are applying

You may each have your own link, in which case you each fill in your own income and Social Security number and neither of you sees the other’s. Or you may share one link and fill it in together.

Either way both of you have to sign before your dealer can send it to a lender.

If your link has stopped working

A link can be turned off by your dealer, and it can lapse on its own. When that happens the page says so and tells you to Contact the dealer for a new link — nothing you filled in is lost, and a new link picks up from where you were.

After you send it

Your dealer is told, and they take it from there. Nothing more is asked of you unless they call.