The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) ordered Hyundai Capital America (Hyundai) to pay $19.2 million for allegedly providing inaccurate information to consumer reporting agencies, including, the CFPB alleged, wrongly reporting that consumers were delinquent on loans and leases, in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

In its press release, the CFPB stated that it received many consumer complaints that Hyundai furnished inaccurate credit information about consumer payments on loans and leases to consumer reporting agencies. The CFPB asserted that Hyundai furnished inaccurate information on more than 2.2 million customer accounts and identified many issues in its internal audits, but it “took years” to address the problems.

More specifically, the CFPB states that Hyundai violated the FCRA by:

• Failing to report complete and accurate loan and lease information, including failing to promptly update and correct information it had furnished to consumer reporting agencies that it determined was not complete or accurate;
• Failing to provide date of first delinquency information to consumer reporting agencies when required;
• Failing to modify or delete information when required, specifically that monthly updates by Hyundai’s furnishing system to consumer reporting agencies allegedly overrode manual corrections made by employees in responding to consumer disputes, which allegedly reintroduced the data error after it had been disputed and corrected;
• Failing to have reasonable identity theft and related blocking procedures and continuing to report such information that should have been blocked on a consumer’s report; and
• Failing to have written accuracy and integrity policies and procedures as required by Regulation V, specifically an alleged failure to review and update its credit reporting furnishing policies and procedures from 2010 to 2017.

As a result of its investigation, Hyundai was ordered to pay a $6 million civil penalty and $13.2 million in restitution to current and former customers, as well as to take steps to correct all inaccurate account information.

An enforcement action of this size and severity indicates the CFPB’s continued priority on investigating creditors’ furnishing practices under the FCRA.