Credit2NV.com makes sure that these laws are being followed. Our first step is to audit the creditors using the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. These two laws have been established to protect consumers like you. Creditors and credit bureaus are legally obligated to produce documented evidence within a reasonable amount of time, generally 30 to 45 days, to back the claims they make about you. If our investigtions proves that they cannot validate thier claims, they must promptly remove any undocumented information from your credit report.
A study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that 70% of all credit reports contained errors. These black marks in your credit history can have devastating consequences:
The most valuable thing we have is our good name. As consumers, the most common reflection of our reputation as someone who pays bills on time, is trustworthy and financialy sound is our credit report. Unfotunately, the information contained in our credit reports, which are bought and sold daily to nearly anyone who requests and pays for them, does not always tell the true story.
Credit bureaus collect and compile information about consumer creditworthiness from banks and other creditors and from public record sources such as lawsuits, tax liens and legal judgements. The three major credit bureaus -- Experian (formerly TRW), Equifax (CSC Credit Services), and Trans Union -- maintain files on nearly 90% of all American adults. Those files are routinely sold to credit grantors, landlords, employers, insurance companies, and many others interested in the credit record of a consumer, often (legally) without the consumer's knowledge or permission. Conversely, consumers rarely check thier credit record until after they've been denied or otherwise encountered a problem. Throughout the 1990s, credit report errors have been a serious problem that several states and Congress have addressed.
This is the PIRG's sixt study on credit report accuracy and privacy issues since 1991. The PIRGs have also participated in state and federal legislative battles to improve credit reporting laws. This report is our first investigation of credit report accuracy since 1996 Congressional changes to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), designed to improve the accuracy and ease of access to reports, took effect in September 1997. The findings of Mistakes Can Happen are troubling. An alarming number of credit reports contain serious errors that could cause the denial of credit, a loan, or even a job. Further, some consumers never even received their reports, even after repeated calls.
Among the major credit report accuracy findings of the survey:
- Twenty-nine percent (29%) of the credit reports contained serious errors - false delinquencies or accounts that did not belong to the consumer - that could result in the denial of credit;
- Forty-one percent (41%) of the credit reports contained personal demographic identifying information that was misspelled, long-outdated, belonged to a stranger, or was otherwise incorrect;
- Twenty percent (20%) of the credit reports were missing major credit, loan, mortgage, or other consumer accounts that demonstrate the creditworthiness of the consumer;
- Twenty-six percent (26%) of the credit reports contained credit accounts that had been closed by the consumer but incorrectly remained listed as open;
- Altogether, seventy percent (70%) of the credit reports contained either serious errors or other mistakes of some kind.
Among the survey's major access to crdit report findings:
- Of the conusmers that did obtain their credit reports, at least 14% of them were forced to cal back three or more times after receiving busy signals or had to write a letter in order to receive their report;
- And 12% of the consumers waited two weeks or longer to receive ther report once they finished requesting it. It took more than a month for one California man to receive his report.
- Overall, 15% of conumers who attempted to participate in the survey either made at least three phone calls and never got through or requested their reports but never received them.