California Credit Law Blog

Consumers with poor credit naturally want to clean up their credit reports. But as Michelle Singletary reported in her Wahington Post column last week, there are credit repair scammers out there that are perfectly willing to take consumers' hard-earned cash and then fail to do anything useful. Worse, some of their "methods" can be unethical or even unlawful.

Consumers should look for these red flags in deciding whether a credit repair organization is legitimate. Beware of credit repair organizations that do any of the following:

1) The company requires an upfront fee. Under the federal Credit Repair Organizations Act, it is illegal for companies to charge consumers money before performing the promised credit-repair services

2) The company says it will dispute everything in the consumer's file including information that is correct. This seems like a no-brainer: disputing legitimate information is lying. If a company wants to lie, it's not reputable.

3) Before the consumer signs a contract, the company fails to provide them with a copy of the FTC's "Consumer Credit File Rights Under State and Federal Law," which outlines what ithe company can and cannot do.

4) The company tells the consumer not to directly contact the credit-reporting agencies. Sometimes this is the most efficient way to clear inaccurate information from consumer credit reports.

5) The company tells the consumer that it can get them a new credit identity by applying for an employer identification number (EIN) from the Internal Revenue Service. If the consumer doesn't own a business, this is not a legitimate way to repair the consumer's personal credit history. It is a federal crime to obtain an EIN under false pretenses.

Posted by Carol McLean Brewer | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Correcting Errors on Your Credit Reports

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Significant percentages of consumer credit reports include serious errors. What happens if the error is a misinterpretation of a court document? What happens if a consumer settles a dispute in court, but a credit reporting agency instead reports that the consumer has a judgment entered against him? What happens if that error results in credit denials for the consumer?

That happened to Los Angeles resident Jason Dennis, as Molly Selvin reports in today's Los Angeles Times. Mr. Dennis had a dispute with a landlord that resulted in a settlement: he and his landlord agreed that no judgment would be entered if he paid a settlement amount. He paid that amount and the court file showed that the parties filed a Request for Dismissal and that the case was dismissed. No problems, right?

Wrong. When Mr. Dennis tried to get credit to start a new business, he discovered that Experian was reporting a judgment against him--a serious "ding" on anyone's credit report. He disputed with Experian, and asked Experian to fulfill its legal obligation to "conduct a reasonable investigation to determine whether the disputed information was inaccurate." But, even though the court file showed that Mr. Dennis was right, Experian refused to change his report. Worse, after Mr. Dennis sued, the trial court entered judgment in Experian's favor, finding that Experian had met its obligation to reinvestigate.

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeal vindicated Mr. Dennis. It reversed the trial court and told it to enter judgment in Mr. Dennis' favor because "no rational jury could find that [Experian] wasn't negligent." The Court said "this case illustrates how important it is for Experian, a company that traffics in the reputations of ordinary people, to train its employees to understand the legal significance of the documents they rely on."

Although this case affects only Mr. Dennis, it sends a hugely important message to Experian and the other credit reporting agencies. We can only hope that they will take the Court's advice and do a better job on consumers' credit reports.

Posted by Carol McLean Brewer | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Correcting Errors on Your Credit Reports

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4 out of 5 credit reports contain an error, and a quarter of those errors cause serious problems, according to today's news from Washington. Yet the 2003 law that was supposed to make it easier for consumers to guard against identity theft and to freely access their credit reports is still not final.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act's 2003 amendments were supposed to make it easier for consumers to access and correct mistakes in their credit reports. But House Financial Services Committee members today criticized the FTC and the Federal Reserve for not implementing final rules from the 2003 law, according to Congress Daily. The FTC has still not implemented two of the 2003 provisions that gave consumers free access to their credit reports and permitted them to put a fraud alert on their file if there was a possibility of identity theft.

The Washington Post reported that as many as “79 percent of credit reports may contain an error, and 25 percent of errors lead to a denial of credit, according to a report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.” New York Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D) “said at the hearing that the failure to implement the legislation has condemned consumers to ‘voice-mail hell’ as they try to navigate an opaque system.” The FTC and the Federal Reserve “cited the complicated nature of the regulations and massive bureaucratic hurdles as causing delayed enforcement of the mandates.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, testified yesterday that “credit reporting companies continue to respond to disputes with only ‘perfunctory’ automated systems that tend to repeat errors rather than repair them.”

This is a distressing--and depressing--snapshot of our government at work. Or not.

Posted by Carol McLean Brewer | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Correcting Errors on Your Credit Reports

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Credit bureaus are required to correct errors in consumers' credit reports when the consumers dispute inaccurate items in their credit reports. The errors usually stem from inaccurate reports provided by credit card companies, debt collectors and retailers. Often, the credit bureaus' investigation of the disputed item is merely to ask the "supplier" of the inaccurate information if the information is accurate. Too often, the supplier tells the credit bureaus the information is accurate which leads to the credit bureaus refusing to correct the reports.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives the consumer the right to sue the credit bureaus and suppliers of the erroneous information for damages, injunctive relief and attorney's fees.

The FCRA is a complicated statute. The credit bureaus are skilled at defending their positions. Consumers should turn to attorneys knowledgeable in this area of the law. KABOB attorneys are available for consultation with consumers in California. For more information go www.kaboblaw.com.

Posted by Mark F. Anderson | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Correcting Errors on Your Credit Reports

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On May 3, 2007, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held that credit bureaus such as Equifax, Experian & Trans Union must provide consumers credit disclosures that are not only accurate, but "clear." In Gillespie v Equifax, the plaintiffs requested their credit reports, which, among other things, listed the "date of last activity" on certain collection accounts. Depending on what event triggered the listing in this category, the report could lack clarity as to when delinquency had occurred. Having clarity on this point could be important to the consumer because, under FCRA, a consumer report may not include “accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss which antedate the report by more than seven years.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(4). Here's what the Seventh Circuit held:

We conclude that the consumer reporting agency must do more than simply make an accurate disclosure of the information in the consumer’s credit file. The disclosure must be made in a manner sufficient to allow the consumer to compare the disclosed information from the credit file against the consumer’s personal information in order to allow the consumer to determine the accuracy of the information set forth in her credit file. In writing § 1681g(a)(1), Congress requires disclosure that is both “clearly and accurately” made. An accurate disclosure of unclear information defeats the consumer’s ability to review the credit file, eliminating a consumer protection procedure established by Congress under the FCRA.

Posted by Mark F. Anderson | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: Consumer Credit 101 , Correcting Errors on Your Credit Reports

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