Consumer Protections Under The Federal Credit Reporting Act

By Helen Harris

The FCRA or the Federal Credit Reporting Act is a federal law that governs the compilation and distribution of consumer credit information. It promotes the accuracy, fairness and confidentiality of the personal credit information that is compiled by credit reporting agencies. It was initially enacted back in 1970 and the most recent amendment took place in December 2003.

Credit reports are widespread and regularly used in the United States. The original objective of a credit report was to appraise the creditworthiness of an individual for obtaining credit but nowadays credit reports are also utilized for such things as insurance underwriting and employment applications. As of this time, it is absolutely legal for a person to be turned down for insurance or turned down for or terminated employment based on what is contained in a credit report.

A credit-reporting agency is a business that collects, compiles and sells credit information on consumers. In the United States there are three key credit-reporting agencies, TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.

The FCRA was enacted to guard consumers from incomplete, unfair and inaccurate information on a credit report. It provides consumers the right to dispute and challenge any information on a credit report that is judged to be imprecise or erroneous in any way. If there is deceptive information showing on your credit report you have the alternative to provide a dispute to the credit bureaus. They will have 30 days from receiving of your dispute to either confirm the correctness of what they are reporting or delete it from your report.

The Federal Credit Reporting Act also gives consumers the right to get one free credit report each year from each of the credit companies. This does not happen routinely but only after a request has been made. You are also entitled to a credit report whenever you are denied credit based upon the information on the credit report. Whichever credit bureau is reporting the bad information must supply the credit report to the consumer upon request.

Many times poor credit listings are deleted from credit reports after a dispute because the credit bureaus were unable to authenticate the accurateness within the time period. If information is removed the credit bureaus can't reinstate the listing without notifying the consumer in writing.

The Federal Credit Reporting Act also governs the amount of time that poor information can remain on a credit report. A listing cannot remain longer than 7 years following the delinquency for most things, but, a bankruptcy can remain on the report for 10 years and a tax lien for 7 years after it has been satisfied.

A consumer should take the time to offer a dispute if they have any uncertain information on their account because it has been predicted that as many as 40% of all disputes end up getting the information removed from the credit report because it could not be proven within the time limit. If the information is negative but truthful and accurate it should not be disputed but should stay on the credit report for the specified time period. - 31377

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