Credit Acceptance Will Erase $634 Million in Car Loans for More Than 55,000 Borrowers and Pay $60 Million in Cash — No Claim Form, Letters by February 1, 2027. The Cut-Off Is a Score the Company Kept to Itself: Under 56, With a Car Payment Eating 13% or More of Income. Ten States, Including Texas, Are Not in the Deal

The consent judgment filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mercer County, on September 17, 2026 — the New Jersey copy of the multistate deal — defines the two debt-relief groups with a precision the press releases skip. An “Early Defaulted Account” is one where “(1) accountholders had a Credit Acceptance Score at the time of origination of less than 56 and a PTNI ratio at origination equal to or greater than 13%; (2) the vehicle associated with the account was sold as a result of a voluntary surrender or involuntary repossession that occurred within 18 months of origination; and (3) the account was originated from November 1, 2015, to November 30, 2025.” “PTNI” is “the ratio of the consumer's contractual monthly payment to the consumer's monthly income,” after estimated taxes. The “Credit Acceptance Score” is “CAC's proprietary credit scoring system” — not a FICO score. The attorneys general describe it as the company's own prediction of “the percentage CAC will collect on the loan”; in New Jersey's words, the states alleged that borrowers “could not reasonably afford many of CAC's low 'score' loans, including those where CAC predicted the consumer could not pay back even the loan's principal.”

Paragraph 11 of the judgment: “On or before the Effective Date, CAC shall provide full debt relief in the form of a waiver of all outstanding balances for Accountholders, who are made up of consumers with open Early Defaulted Accounts as of December 1, 2025, in an amount estimated at $388,000,000.” Paragraph 12 does the same for “Other Identified Early Defaulted Accounts” — same score and PTNI cut-offs, same origination window, but the vehicle “was not subject to a voluntary or involuntary repossession and sold at auction” — “in an amount estimated at $246,000,000,” and adds that CAC “shall also release to such Accountholders any lien it has on the title to the relevant vehicles associated with the Contracts for such Other Identified Early Defaulted Accounts, and to the extent it has possession of such title, shall provide such title to the Accountholder.” In plain terms: if you still have the car, you keep it, free and clear.

The third pot is cash. CAC pays “$60,000,000.00 (the 'Settlement Payment') to a trust account to be used by a settlement administrator selected by the Multistate Executive Committee” — the attorneys general of Arkansas, California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York — which “shall have sole discretion concerning the Accountholders entitled to relief and the nature and amounts of such relief.” New York's release says the cash goes “to thousands of additional consumers who were misled and lost their cars within months of taking out their loans with CAC”; North Carolina's says restitution is “for consumers who got particularly risky loans,” with “nearly $2 million” going “to about 1,300 North Carolina consumers, with an average of about $1,435 going to each consumer.” The judgment itself does not publish the formula, and neither do we.

The arithmetic, ours and clearly marked as such: $60 million plus $388 million plus $246 million is the $694 million in every headline; add the “Multistate Payment” of $15,500,000 to the states (paragraph 9) and you reach the “$700 million” in New York's headline. New York's “more than 55,000 consumers” against $634 million of debt relief implies an average balance forgiven of at most about $11,500 — a ceiling, since the headcount is a floor, and individual balances will range widely. CAC's own Form 8-K says the debt relief is “an estimated $634,000,000” and that the monetary components “will not require the Company to record additional charges beyond amounts previously accrued.”

The judgment defines the Effective Date as November 2, 2026, requires the debt relief “on or before the Effective Date,” and says that “all requirements in this Section III shall be effectuated within 90 days of the Effective Date” — that is, by the end of January 2027. The company's customer page translates that into a promise: “If your account is among them, within 90 days of November 2, and no later than February 1, 2027, we will send you a communication by mail or email that explains what the resolution means for you.” Paragraph 16 of the judgment requires CAC to “notify each Accountholder covered by paragraphs 11 and 12 ... by letter, email, or text of the fact the account has been closed and no further payments are owed; and any lien held by CAC has been released.”

Two consequences follow that borrowers rarely get. Paragraph 14: CAC “shall no longer furnish data on the Accountholders covered by paragraphs 11 and 12 ... and shall provide notice to the three major credit reporting bureaus requesting deletion of the trade lines associated with all such accounts.” Paragraph 15: CAC “shall refrain from commencing a collection lawsuit as of the Effective Date or engaging in any debt collection activities, and selling or otherwise transferring the accounts.” Paragraph 16 also requires CAC to tell borrowers that the debt was “the subject of a bona fide dispute” and the relief “a compromise of disputed debt” — wording that can matter when forgiven debt meets a tax return. We are not going to tell you how the IRS will treat it; a tax professional should.

Until a letter arrives, the company's instruction is to keep paying: “All customers should continue making their scheduled payments as usual at this time,” and “Your contract has not changed simply because of the resolution.” It also says it cannot tell you over the phone whether you qualify: “Eligibility information isn't available through this page or over the phone.” The scale, from the company: “Fewer than 3% of our open accounts are impacted by settlement-related debt forgiveness.” The cash fund is different: “The state attorneys general — not Credit Acceptance — administer the consumer relief fund and determine who is eligible and the amount of any payment,” and, per New Jersey, “Consumers eligible for restitution will be notified by a claims administrator.” No administrator has been named publicly yet.

Scam test, in the company's own words: “Any communication from Credit Acceptance will NOT include any hyperlinks or ask for your personal identifiable information.” The customer-support line is (800) 634-1506; New Jersey's release gives the same number, 1-800-634-1506, for questions about the settlement. Keep your address current with the company — the letters go to the address on file.

The multistate investigation dates to 2020, according to the company. In January 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued CAC in Manhattan federal court, alleging, in the New York release's summary, that “CAC deceptively pushed tens of thousands of consumers into unaffordable loans packaged with expensive add-on products, costing consumers millions of dollars and causing many to lose their vehicles when they could not make loan payments.” The allegations included that “The average CAC loan carried an annual interest rate of more than 38 percent, with some reaching over 100 percent,” and that “nearly half of all consumers” had “their vehicles repossessed during their loans.” Then, in New York's words: “In April 2025, CFPB dropped its case against CAC, getting nothing in return. The OAG continued litigation and secured this settlement with a coalition of 39 other states and the District of Columbia.” New Jersey's headline says the same thing more pointedly: “New Jersey and 40 States Hold CAC Accountable After CFPB Permanently Dropped Its Enforcement Action in 2025.”

Forty-one attorneys general signed: New York, thirty-nine other states and the District of Columbia, with Hawaii's Office of Consumer Protection and Utah's Division of Consumer Protection listed in the working group. The ten states that are not parties, by our comparison of the participants list against the fifty states: Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. Whether borrowers in those states receive the debt relief is not stated in any document we read. The New Jersey judgment defines an “Accountholder” simply as “any consumer who has a Contract with CAC,” with no residency limit, and New York describes the 55,000 as “nationwide” — but we could not find a sentence that says Texas borrowers are in, and we will not infer one.

The state-by-state figures that have been published: New York, “approximately $34 million in debt relief for consumers and restitution and penalty payments,” with “about 2,500 New Yorkers” among the debt-relief recipients. New Jersey, “more than $28.5 million” — “approximately $2.2 million in restitution and $25.6 million in debt relief.” Georgia, per WSB-TV quoting Attorney General Chris Carr, “$28 million will go directly to 4,890 Georgia consumers.” Michigan, where CAC is headquartered, “approximately $70,331,730 in debt forgiveness” plus $790,474 to the state. North Carolina, “about $7.5 million in debt relief and $2 million in restitution.”

CAC admits nothing. Its customer page: “The settlement was reached without any admission of wrongdoing by Credit Acceptance.” Chief Executive Vinayak Hegde, in the company's release: “This resolution provides certainty for our business, our dealer partners and the customers we serve.” And on the reforms, in his letter to customers: “many of which reflect practices we already have in place today.”

Our copy of the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database holds 17,814,755 complaints, the latest dated September 17, 2026. Filtering on the company field for CREDIT ACCEPTANCE CORPORATION returns 14,330 complaints between April 5, 2012 and September 14, 2026. (A separate lender, American Credit Acceptance, LLC, has 4,011 and is not part of this settlement.) These are unverified consumer submissions, not findings; what they show is volume and pattern.

The most frequent issue category is not the loan at all but the credit report: “Incorrect information on your report” (3,523) and “Improper use of your report” (1,690) come first, then “Managing the loan or lease” (1,681), “Repossession” (1,068), “Attempts to collect debt not owed” (924) and “Struggling to pay your loan” (801). Counting every complaint whose issue or sub-issue mentions repossession gives 1,453; the single most common repossession sub-issue is “Loan balance remaining after the vehicle is repossessed and sold” — 655 complaints about exactly the deficiency balances this settlement wipes. The credit-reporting weight is worth noting against paragraph 14 of the judgment: for the covered accounts, CAC must stop furnishing data and ask the bureaus to delete the tradelines.

By state, the ten largest sources account for 8,305 of the 14,330: Michigan 1,476; New York 1,008; Texas 939; Pennsylvania 789; Georgia 772; New Jersey 768; Florida 719; Ohio 694; Illinois 571; Alabama 569. Texas is the third-largest source of complaints and is not a party to the settlement. Company responses: 13,454 “Closed with explanation” (93.9 percent), 682 “Closed with monetary relief” (4.8 percent), 189 “Closed with non-monetary relief”.

For contracts “originated after December 1, 2025,” paragraph 18 creates what the attorneys general call “off ramps.” For an “Eligible Account” CAC must “(1) waive 95% of any Deficiency Balance; (2) refrain from either commencing a collection lawsuit involving that Accountholder at any time or selling or otherwise transferring the contract,” limit itself to four collection contacts after the ninetieth day following the waiver, and “consider in good faith any request by the Accountholder to delete their tradeline.” Eligible Accounts are defined by four combinations of an ordinary credit score, PTNI and the speed of failure: a credit score of 475 to under 500 with PTNI of 13 percent or more and an involuntary repossession and sale within 12 months; no credit score with PTNI of 25 to under 28 percent, repossessed within 12 months; a credit score under 475 with PTNI of 13 percent or more, repossessed within 18 months; or no credit score with PTNI of 28 percent or more, repossessed within 18 months. That obligation runs “for a period of five (5) years from the Effective Date.”

The other injunctive terms, as the states summarise them: a cap on vehicle prices “at 109% of retail book value for certain customers for seven years”; pre-loan disclosures, for consumers with a credit score under 600 and for “credit invisible” consumers, of “the percentage of subprime and deep subprime consumers with similar Credit Scores who have experienced delinquency”; a process to prevent unlawful packing of vehicle service contracts and GAP products, including a post-purchase contact “outside of the dealer showroom” that lets consumers cancel the add-ons while keeping the car; and processes “to prevent dealers from raising car prices due to credit worthiness or above advertised prices.”

What we could not verify and say so: which administrator will run the $60 million fund and when its letters go out; the exact number of accounts in each debt-relief group; and whether borrowers in the ten non-signatory states are included. The consent judgment, New Jersey's copy, is public; the New York settlement resolving the Southern District of New York case is described in New York's release but we have not read that filing.