These Credit Bureau Facts Could Save You Thousands
Consumers like me are blindsided each day by millions of credit reporting errors which could be avoided. Easily avoided. And, of course, numerous consumers have hired law firms, credit restoration companies and even fought bureaus themselves to rid their files of illegitimate entries. Some work, others fail. Rinse, repeat, grab box of Kleenex.
For those intrigued enough to learn about how ill-mannered these companies operate, read on to discover some underlying truths behind your credit file, a nifty two digit code and the validation service created by — you guessed it — the credit bureaus themselves.
FCRA Requires Full Disclosure
Just several days ago, I was viewing some ridiculous addresses associated with my Experian credit file. Some I’ve never heard of (because, well, they’re 1,100 miles away) and several that were portmanteaus of other addresses. I immediately opened a dispute since these aren’t mine and, rightfully so, FCRA requires accuracy and truth in reporting. Not even 24 hours later, I received the electronic results to my dispute — nothing changed. Who decided that imaginary addresses were mine implicitly? Experian.
According to 15 U.S. Code § 1681a through 1681s, various levels of truth in reporting, full consumer disclosure and potential penalties for credit bureau wrongdoing are right there. Own them, leverage them in whatever fashion is allowed by consumer law; its well within your constitutional rights to do so. Instead of running the CRA up one side of District Court and down the Federal level, I decided to up the ante in my dispute.
Speaking of disputes, did you know that…
The Big 3 Bureaus Fathered the Disputing System?
When I submitted my dispute online (never suggested, by the way), my page long cry for credit report rationality was reduced to two identifying characters based off the nature of my bitching. That code was passed from the CRA to the original data furnisher (creditor), who then shot back another two character code and ‘verified’ my information. Classy, right?
While this method of validation certainly isn’t illegal, failing to validate all data points is. That means credit bureaus, theoretically, should be manning the phones or emails to make sure every last piece of data conforms to FCRA requirements — which we all know never happens. E-Oscar, the web platform created by these three bureaus (and Innovis) to streamline millions of debt validation requests, is the self-purported accuracy checking method which costs companies to use.
An error-prone reporting system using an ancient system of validating consumer reporting issues should be penalized for existing. Unfortunately, it does exist and it does treat the consumer as an embarrassing, diminutive piece of irrelevant digital garbage. But…
There’s No Law Stating When Litigation Can Happen
When you’ve officially busted credit bureaus breaking consumer laws, sending threatening lawsuit letters isn’t necessary. In fact, once you’ve sent the dispute and have gone through the correct steps, the burden of proof is off your hands. The first violation of your consumer, constitutional and FCRA rights is grounds for litigation — not the second, fifth or twelfth letter demanding validation. You, again, are well within your rights to slam the law books as far north of any violator’s butt entrance that you wish. Just make sure you’ve compiled enough evidence to substantiate your claims, and hire someone that specializes in FCRA law.
Have you been told differently? Naysayers have obviously never fully examined the FCRA or any Appellant Court decisions that are based on various clauses of the FCRA because if they did, they would know what level of culpability rests on the shoulders of credit bureaus. Period. Of course, there are pre-litigation tricks involved with getting CRA’s to admit wrongdoing and remove errant entries, all which simply require specific use of legal verbiage and proper citation of successful Appellant court opinions and cases.
Consumer credit report bullying is an epidemic. Failing to correctly present your credit history to potential creditors — and yourself — should be treated like any other wrongdoing you encounter in life. Fight the good fight, folks, and remember to educate yourself on FCRA law. A wonderful FCRA 1681 guidebook (108 pages of consumer rights) is linked here. Study it.
