TD Auto Finance on Your Credit Report: TDAF Errors and Disputes

A great many people who end up reading about TD Auto Finance never knowingly borrowed from a Canadian bank. They financed a Chrysler, a Dodge, a Jeep or a Ram at a dealership, made payments for years, and then one day pulled a credit report and found a tradeline labeled TDAF or TD AUTO FIN that they did not recognize. The explanation is corporate history rather than fraud, and this page starts there because you cannot dispute a tradeline intelligently until you know which company is actually furnishing it. From there we cover the errors that TD Auto Finance accounts actually produce, the address the company itself publishes for disputes, the reason a letter to the lender is not the step that creates a legal claim, and an honest account of which TDAF problems are worth a lawyer's time. We act for consumers only, nationwide.

TDAF, TD AUTO FIN, and where the loan actually came from

TD Auto Finance is the United States automotive lending arm of The Toronto-Dominion Bank, operating out of Southfield, Michigan. It writes retail installment contracts through franchised dealerships and it finances dealer inventory. On a credit file it usually abbreviates to TDAF or TD AUTO FIN, occasionally to TD BANK USA, and the abbreviation is the reason most people arrive at a page like this one.

The lineage explains the confusion. The business began in 1964 as Chrysler Credit Corporation, the captive finance company for Chrysler dealers, and later operated as Chrysler Financial. By 2007 the predecessor company managed contracts valued at roughly $75 billion with about 3,600 employees across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. After the financial crisis it passed to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, and in December 2010 Toronto-Dominion agreed to buy it for $6.3 billion. The transaction closed in 2011 and the business was renamed TD Auto Finance.

The practical consequence for a consumer is that a car loan opened under one brand can be reported under another. That is lawful when it is done correctly. It is a reporting problem when it is not, and the next section explains why.

How an ownership change turns one car loan into two tradelines

When a loan portfolio moves from one company to another, the old furnisher is supposed to stop reporting the account as an active obligation and the new furnisher is supposed to pick it up with the original opening date and the original payment history intact. When the handoff is done badly, the file shows both.

Duplicate reporting of a single auto loan is more damaging than most people assume. It doubles the apparent installment debt, it can make a debt-to-income calculation fail at a mortgage underwriting desk, and if the loan went bad it doubles the derogatory marks rather than recording one. Underwriters generally do not investigate whether two entries describe the same car. They read what the file says.

The other version of this defect is a re-aged opening date. A portfolio transfer is not a new loan, so the transferred tradeline should carry the date the consumer originally signed, not the date TD acquired the book. An opening date pushed forward shortens the apparent age of your oldest accounts, and length of credit history is a scoring input. It also matters more concretely if the account carries negative history, because the seven-year reporting window under the Fair Credit Reporting Act runs from the date of first delinquency on the original obligation and not from any later administrative date.

If you financed with Chrysler Financial and now see TDAF, check three things before anything else: that only one tradeline exists for that vehicle, that the date opened matches your original contract, and that the payment history before the transfer carried over rather than showing as blank or unrated months.

What the CFPB found about TD Bank furnishing, and what it did not cover

This section requires care, and we would rather be precise than dramatic.

On September 11, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau entered a consent order against TD Bank, N.A., docket 2024-CFPB-0009, ordering $7.76 million in consumer redress and a $20 million civil money penalty, a total of $27.76 million. The Bureau cited the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Regulation V along with the Consumer Financial Protection Act and the CARES Act, over a relevant period running from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2023.

The findings describe a furnishing operation that broke down at scale. The order states that the bank failed to promptly correct and update information it furnished to the CRAs once it determined that the information was not complete or accurate. It found that between 2017 and 2021 at least 2,348 direct disputes were not investigated on time, and that for more than 22,000 indirect disputes the bank failed to perform any investigation at all. It described more than 28,000 card accounts reported wrongly as unsettled or unpaid, more than 47,000 accounts with an incorrect date of first delinquency, and more than 13,000 with no date of first delinquency at all.

That order covers credit cards and deposit accounts. It does not cover auto loans. The products at issue were TD Retail Card Services, the bank's U.S. Bankcard portfolio, and deposit account information furnished to specialty reporting agencies. TD Auto Finance is not named in it, and nothing here should be read as a finding that TD Auto Finance reported anything incorrectly.

We include it for one reason. It is a documented, primary-source description of what a furnishing failure actually looks like inside a large bank: disputes not investigated, corrections not pushed downstream, and the date of first delinquency field mishandled on tens of thousands of accounts. If your TDAF tradeline is wrong and your dispute went nowhere, that pattern is worth recognizing, whatever the business line.

Where to send a TD Auto Finance dispute

Auto finance companies run separate mail streams for payments, for general servicing and for disputes, and a letter that lands in the payment lockbox will not reach the people who can correct a credit file. The address below comes from TD Auto Finance's own account service agreement rather than from a directory site, which is the standard worth insisting on for anything you intend to send certified.

• Written disputes and complaints: TD Auto Finance, ATTN: Customer Resolution Department, P.O. Box 9223, Farmington Hills, MI 48333-9223.
• General customer service: 1-800-556-8172.
• Electronic funds transfer questions: 1-800-493-7562.
• Corporate location: Southfield, Michigan. The account agreement describes the servicer as part of TD Bank, N.A. and its affiliates, and the entity that appears in litigation captions is TD Auto Finance LLC.

Keep the payment address off your dispute envelope even if it is the only address you have memorized from a monthly statement. And send the same written dispute to each credit bureau that is reporting the account, because that is the notice with legal consequences.

The TDAF fields that actually go wrong

An auto loan is an installment account, so there is no credit limit and no utilization ratio. What it does have is an original amount, a monthly payment, a balance, a status, a date opened, a date of last payment, a date of first delinquency where applicable, and twenty-four months of payment history. Errors concentrate in a small number of those fields.

The recurring ones on dealer-originated auto paper are a balance that never drops to zero after payoff; a voluntary surrender reported as an involuntary repossession, which reads very differently to an underwriter; a deficiency balance that does not credit the auction proceeds from the sale of the vehicle; a total loss settled by an insurer or by gap coverage where the tradeline stays open with a balance; a trade-in or refinance where the old loan was paid by the new lender but keeps reporting; and late marks continuing to post after a bankruptcy petition date.

Two more are specific to dealer paper. Some contracts are assigned to a lender other than the one the finance manager named at the desk, so the tradeline can legitimately show a company you never heard of. And a co-buyer on a retail installment contract is a full obligor, so the account reports on that person's file too, which surprises spouses and parents constantly. Neither is an error by itself. What is an error is a tradeline reporting on someone who signed nothing.

TD Auto Finance is not Chrysler Capital

This deserves its own heading because the two are confused constantly, including by people who work in the industry.

TD Auto Finance is the successor to Chrysler Financial, the pre-2011 captive. Chrysler Capital is something else entirely: it is a Santander brand, created after the TD transaction, operating under an arrangement with the automaker that Chrysler Financial once served. Same automaker heritage, different bank, different furnisher, different dispute address.

If you have a Chrysler product and a tradeline you do not recognize, the practical test is the furnisher name on the credit report itself rather than the badge on the car. A consumer who mails a dispute about a Chrysler Capital account to TD Auto Finance has sent a letter to a company with no record of the account and no ability to correct it. Our Chrysler Capital page covers that lender separately, and other captives appear on our auto lenders page.

Why the bureau dispute, not the letter to TD, creates the claim

Consumers write to the lender because it feels like the direct route. It is the reasonable instinct and it is not how the statute is built.

You dispute with a credit bureau under 15 U.S.C. 1681i. The bureau must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation at no charge, ordinarily within thirty days, and it must forward the relevant information you supplied to the furnisher. That forwarded notice is what triggers the furnisher's duty under 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(b) to conduct its own investigation, review the information the bureau sent, report the results back, and correct, delete or permanently block anything found inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable, with every agency it reported to.

The furnisher's separate obligation to report accurately in the first place, at 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(a), is not privately enforceable by consumers. That single provision explains why a well-written letter to a lender can produce nothing at all and still leave you with no claim. Send it if you like, and keep the certified mail receipt, but understand that the dispute filed with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion is the act that puts a duty on TD Auto Finance that you can enforce.

Damages, deadlines and the proof that carries a case

Two remedy sections matter. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681o, a negligent violation supports actual damages plus attorney's fees and costs. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681n, a willful violation supports statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per violation, punitive damages, and fees and costs. Willfulness includes reckless disregard of the statute, not only deliberate misconduct.

Actual damages in auto cases tend to be documentable because vehicle credit is a gateway. A denial letter naming the tradeline. A materially higher rate on a replacement car. A larger down payment demanded. A lease application refused. A mortgage underwriter counting the same loan twice. Courts have also long recognized emotional distress in Fair Credit Reporting Act cases.

Assemble your proof before you write rather than after. The retail installment contract with its date and original amount. The payoff letter. Bank records showing disputed payments clearing. The auction or sale report if the vehicle was repossessed or surrendered. The insurer or gap payout for a total loss. The bankruptcy petition date and discharge order. Then state the defect with figures: the tradeline reports a balance of $4,180 as of April 2026; the payoff letter dated February 2, 2026 shows the account paid in full. Our credit dispute letter guide sets out the structure, and 15 U.S.C. 1681p generally requires suit within two years of discovering the violation and never more than five years after it occurred.

How The Kim Law Firm handles TD Auto Finance problems

We represent consumers throughout the country and we act only for consumers, never for lenders, dealerships, collection agencies or credit bureaus. The TD Auto Finance matters that become cases here look like this: the same vehicle loan reported twice, once by TDAF and once by a predecessor or a sold-to servicer; an opening date re-aged to the portfolio transfer rather than the original contract; a balance still reported after payoff; a voluntary surrender recorded as a repossession; a deficiency that ignores the auction proceeds; late marks posted after a bankruptcy petition; a total loss paid by insurance with the tradeline left open; or a TDAF account reported on someone who never signed the contract.

We do not help remove accurate negative information, and we would rather say that in the first five minutes than the fiftieth. If you missed car payments and the tradeline records that correctly, no lawyer can lawfully erase it, and anyone who promises otherwise is selling something. Disliking the interest rate, the dealer or the vehicle is likewise not a Fair Credit Reporting Act matter — the statute governs the accuracy of what is reported about you, not the fairness of the deal. Only inaccuracy is a case here.

Where a properly routed dispute left an error standing, you may be entitled to actual damages, statutory and punitive damages for willful conduct, and attorney's fees and costs. We work on contingency: no fee unless we win.

Our FCRA lawyer guide explains how a case proceeds and the credit reporting errors overview covers the patterns we see most. If the account is not yours at all, start with identity theft or mixed credit file claims. Card and consumer lenders are on our creditors and lenders page. When you are ready, contact us for a free review.

Frequently asked questions

What does TDAF mean on my credit report?

TDAF is the common abbreviation for TD Auto Finance, the United States auto lending arm of The Toronto-Dominion Bank, headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. It may also appear as TD AUTO FIN. Many people encounter it without recognizing it because the business was formerly Chrysler Credit Corporation and then Chrysler Financial; Toronto-Dominion acquired it from Cerberus Capital Management in a deal announced in December 2010 that closed in 2011. A Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep or Ram loan from that era can therefore report under a TD name.

Why does my old Chrysler Financial loan now show as TD Auto Finance?

Because the portfolio changed hands. Toronto-Dominion bought Chrysler Financial for $6.3 billion, the deal closed in 2011, and the business was renamed TD Auto Finance. A transferred loan should report under the new furnisher with the original opening date and the original payment history intact, and the old furnisher should stop reporting it as an active obligation. If both entries appear, or if the opening date jumped forward to the transfer date, that is worth disputing in writing with all three credit bureaus.

Where do I mail a TD Auto Finance dispute?

TD Auto Finance publishes a customer resolution address in its account service agreement: TD Auto Finance, ATTN: Customer Resolution Department, P.O. Box 9223, Farmington Hills, MI 48333-9223. General service is 1-800-556-8172. Do not send a dispute to the payment lockbox, because it will not reach the department that can correct a credit file. Send a matching written dispute to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion as well, since the bureau notice is what triggers the furnisher's investigation duty under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Did the CFPB fine TD Bank for credit reporting on auto loans?

No. The September 2024 consent order against TD Bank, N.A., docket 2024-CFPB-0009, ordered $7.76 million in redress and a $20 million penalty for furnishing failures, but the products at issue were credit cards and deposit accounts. The order does not name TD Auto Finance and makes no finding about auto loan reporting. It is worth reading as an illustration of what a furnishing breakdown looks like inside a large bank, but it should not be described as an auto lending enforcement action.

Is TD Auto Finance the same company as Chrysler Capital?

No, and confusing the two wastes disputes. TD Auto Finance is the successor to Chrysler Financial, the pre-2011 captive lender. Chrysler Capital is a Santander brand created after that sale under a later arrangement with the automaker. They are different banks, different furnishers and different dispute addresses. Go by the furnisher name printed on your credit report rather than the badge on the vehicle, because a dispute mailed to the wrong company simply cannot be acted on.

Location does not limit us. The Kim Law Firm represents consumers nationwide in Fair Credit Reporting Act matters, working from our offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If a TD Auto Finance or TDAF tradeline is reporting a balance you already paid, a surrender as a repossession, a duplicate of a Chrysler Financial loan, or an account you never signed for, and disputing it has not fixed it, we would like to hear from you.