CREDIT REPORT INFORMATION
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires consumer reporting agencies adopt reasonable procedures for ensuring the confidentiality and accuracy of consumer’s credit information. The FCRA applies to situations in which a person collects information about a consumer’s credit worthiness, like denying a consumer credit or increasing a consumer’s interest rate. The FCRA also applies if the information is used relating to employment opportunities, government benefits, or certain business transactions.
The FCRA protects consumer’s privacy and reputations by placing obligations on parties who use or disseminate credit information. Consumer reporting agencies must adopt reasonable procedures to ensure that the information they disseminate is accurate and up-to-date and is only furnished to users with a permissible purpose.
These obligations are designed so that consumers will know when a consumer report has been used as the basis of an adverse action and that consumers will know what information is being disseminated about them. Consumer reporting agencies must reinvestigate information consumers dispute and inform users of the report of the consumer’s dispute. Furnishers of information must participate in credit reporting agency’s reinvestigation.
The FCRA also prohibits a user to obtain information on a consumer under false pretenses, or for an officer or an employee of a credit reporting agency to furnish information to an unauthorized person.
The FCRA is designed to prevent identity theft and provide victims with tools to remedy the harm caused by identity theft.
Consumers can recover actual, statutory, punitive damages, and attorney fees.
