Nobody has to fill in an application to receive relief under the Credit Acceptance settlement. Attorneys general in 41 states and Washington, D.C. announced that the subprime auto lender will erase $634 million in car loan debt, and the lender itself is responsible for telling borrowers who are covered. The settlement takes effect November 2, which is a start date for the terms rather than a deadline for anyone.
Two tranches that add up to $634 million
The headline figure is a sum, and the arithmetic comes straight from the Virginia attorney general’s release. Debt relief of $388 million goes to borrowers whose cars have been repossessed. A further $246 million goes to borrowers whose cars have not been repossessed, “allowing those consumers to keep their cars,” in the release’s words. Together, $388 million plus $246 million is $634 million.
The full settlement is larger. Adding $60 million in cash restitution brings the total to the $694 million the attorneys general announced, which the release describes as cash and debt relief combined. The restitution is a separate pool with a separate notice, and the $246 million tranche should not be read as the whole of the relief for people who still have their vehicles; it is only the portion for borrowers who were not repossessed.
Forty-one states, the District of Columbia and one holdout
The agreement covers 41 states plus the District of Columbia, and the Virginia release notes that New York is settling separately. Maryland, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Minnesota and New Jersey sit on the executive committee that led the investigation. Virginia and Colorado are among the other attorneys general who issued their own announcements.
Each state reports its own piece of the national totals. Virginia reports more than $17 million in debt relief and over $2 million in restitution for its residents, while the Colorado attorney general’s office counts nearly 500 Colorado consumers receiving restitution totaling $678,736.
Relief that arrives by notice, with no form attached
The mechanics are the unusual part. According to the Maryland attorney general’s release, no action is required of consumers. Credit Acceptance notifies borrowers who are eligible for debt relief, and a separate claims administrator notifies those eligible for restitution. A borrower could therefore hear from two different senders about two different pieces of the same settlement.
The covered loans were made between November 1, 2015 and November 30, 2025. The releases do not say how much relief an individual borrower will see; they report totals by tranche, and the individual treatment is left to the notice. Borrowers with questions can reach Credit Acceptance at (800) 634-1506, and Virginia residents can call the attorney general’s consumer protection hotline at (804) 786-2042.
What November 2 does and does not mean
The date appearing on the announcement is the settlement’s effective date. It marks when the agreement’s terms begin, not a cutoff for borrowers to respond, enroll or file. A household that has not yet received a notice has not missed anything on that date, and the releases name no consumer deadline for the debt relief.
The releases give no schedule for when notices will go out, so the effective date should not be read as a mailing date either. Maryland’s office lists its own settlement contact at 410-576-6456 and [email protected] for Maryland borrowers, and the Credit Acceptance number above is the lender-side line the attorneys general point to for questions about a loan. Borrowers with a repossession on record and borrowers still making payments fall into different tranches, so the first thing a notice will establish is which one applies.
The lending practices behind the settlement
The attorneys general accused the company of originating loans that borrowers could not afford, relying on its own proprietary score predictions that many would never repay principal, and failing to stop dealers from packing vehicle service contracts and guaranteed asset protection products into loans. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the investigation “found that CAC originated car loans that the company knew or should have known consumers could not afford.”
Maryland Attorney General Brown put the consequence in plain terms: “Credit Acceptance Corporation made loans that many Marylanders could not afford, resulting in consumers defaulting on their loans and losing their vehicles.” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said “companies that are reckless with consumers’ finances will be held to account.”
Going forward, the settlement caps vehicle prices at 109 percent of retail book value and requires clearer pre-loan disclosures about default risk, according to the Virginia release. For qualifying failing loans, the attorneys general describe 95 percent debt relief and five years of protection from collection lawsuits.
The Virginia attorney general’s release, filed September 17, 2026, remains the controlling record for the figures above: $694 million in total, $388 million and $246 million in debt relief, $60 million in restitution, 41 states plus the District of Columbia, and a November 2, 2026 effective date.
Sorting two kinds of settlement notice
The Credit Acceptance settlement sends debt-relief notices from the lender and restitution notices from a separate claims administrator, and neither requires an application. Notices that arrive without a form still carry dates and amounts worth keeping.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice and a claim log and payment tracker, for sorting which dates in a notice matter and recording what arrives.
Open The Settlement & Refund Recovery System for notice dates and payment records →
AI tools assisted in drafting this piece, and each figure was checked against the attorney general releases cited.
