July 26 (Reuters) – A U.S. regulator has ordered a Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) affiliate to pay $19.2 million for repeatedly giving credit-reporting agencies inaccurate information about its customers, including that they were delinquent on loans and leases.
Hyundai Capital America, which serves about 1.7 million drivers of Hyundai, Kia and Genesis vehicles, agreed on Tuesday to pay a $6 million civil fine and $13.2 million in restitution to current and former customers.
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau called the case its largest against an auto servicer under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.
According to the regulator, Hyundai provided inaccurate information more than 8.7 million times across 2.2 million accounts from January 2016 to March 2020, tarnishing customers’ credit reports and often resulting in lowered credit scores.
The CFPB said the errors resulted from “systemic” procedural shortfalls that the South Korean automaker knew about, sometimes through internal audits, but did not fix or took as long as eight years to fix sufficiently.
In a statement, Hyundai Capital America said it has launched an “end-to-end review” of its credit reporting, and was committed to giving customers “timely, accurate, high-quality service and care.”
The Irvine, California-based affiliate has a $45 billion customer portfolio, the CFPB said.
