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Once upon a time, the three big Credit Reporting Agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) collected vast amounts of data on every U.S. resident. When you applied for credit, a loan, or a mortgage, the lender purchased your file from one of these three CRAs, then made their lending decision based on that report. The only problem is that the CRAs did a really bad job of reporting your credit. A 2004 study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that a whopping 79% of the consumer credit reports surveyed contained some kind of error or mistake. Furthermore, the CRAs made it so difficult for us to obtain and correct information on our own credit files that the government had to step in, passing the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which was intended to correct the vast inequity between consumers and credit reporting agencies. Here are a few of your rights under the FCRA: 1) You have the right to get a copy of your own credit report. You're entitled to a free credit report once every twelve months from each of the three big CRAs. There is only one legitimate Web site to get these free credit reports: www.annualcreditreport.com. Everything else advertising "free credit report" is a scam. For proof, visit the Federal Trade Commission Web site. 2) You have the right to find out your credit score. However, the CRAs will charge you for this, because they are evil, with souls as black as coal. 3) You can dispute incorrect information in your file. If you complain to one of the CRAs, they must take certain actions to investigate, unless they determine that your request is "frivolous." Apparently Experian is now the authority on frivolity. Maybe their CEO has been doing a lot of standup recently. 4) The CRAs must correct or remove any inaccurate information about you. Unfortunately, it's up to the CRA to determine whether the information is inaccurate. If they determine it is, they have 30 days to fix it. If they don't, well, good luck with the lawsuit. 5) Victims of identity theft have additional rights. If your identity has been stolen, you can have the CRAs put a "fraud alert" on your account, and you're also entitled to additional credit reports for free. Small comfort if a member of the Russian mob is buying semi-automatic weapons using your forged credit card, but better than nothing. More information: |
