You Have a Responsibility When it Comes to Fair Credit Reporting
- By Lexington Law
- Published 11/18/2009
- Finance
- Unrated
Lexington Law
Providing credit repair services since 1991, Lexington Law has helped over 500,000 clients legally take on their credit. Last year alone, Lexington Law helped clients remove over 600,000 negative items from their credit reports.
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Originally passed in 1970 and amended multiple times since, the Fair Credit Reporting Act was created with the goal of getting consumer credit bureaus to operate in a way that is fair to consumers while still fulfilling the needs of lenders, employers, insurance companies and others who use the information in your credit files. The Fair Credit Reporting Act set out to accomplish this by ensuring the personal and financial information contained in credit reports is accurate, relevant, kept confidential, and only made available under specific circumstances. It is the Fair Credit Reporting Act that laid the foundation for consumer's ability to clean up their credit.
The part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that credit repair primarily focuses on is the accuracy of information in your credit reports. This is the one aspect where the responsibility of ensuring fair credit reporting lies with the individual. With the other three, it is the credit bureaus that are responsible for what types of information get included in credit reports, how this information is kept secure, and which third parties have access to it. But with the issue of accuracy, the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not force the credit reporting agencies to make sure information is correct when it is first added to your credit reports. Instead, the Act gives you the ability to dispute any questionable information in your credit reports, making it your responsibility to make sure the information the credit bureaus have added to your
credit reports is a fair representation of your credit worthiness.
Many, including a number of which count themselves among this nation's credit experts,tend to miss this concept. They focus solely on the strict definition of inaccurate reporting and don't see the broader concept of fairness that the Fair Credit Reporting Act is truly about. They continue to preach that people are only able to dispute listings that are patently inaccurate even though modern case law has amended the definition of inaccurate negative items to also include items that are untimely, misleading, incomplete, ambiguous, unverifiable, biased or unclear (collectively known as "questionable" items).
Your credit score is based on the information recorded in your credit file. If you do not feel your credit score is an accurate depiction of your actual credit worthiness, it is your privilege and your responsibility to work to remedy this. Disputing the questionable negative items with the credit reporting agencies is the method made available by the Fair Credit Reporting Act for you to enforce your right to fair credit reporting.
Lexington Law helps clients dispute the questionable negative listings in their credit reports as well as providing additional credit repair services extending beyond credit bureau disputes. In 2008, Lexington Law's clients saw over 600,000 negative items removed from their credit reports.
The part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that credit repair primarily focuses on is the accuracy of information in your credit reports. This is the one aspect where the responsibility of ensuring fair credit reporting lies with the individual. With the other three, it is the credit bureaus that are responsible for what types of information get included in credit reports, how this information is kept secure, and which third parties have access to it. But with the issue of accuracy, the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not force the credit reporting agencies to make sure information is correct when it is first added to your credit reports. Instead, the Act gives you the ability to dispute any questionable information in your credit reports, making it your responsibility to make sure the information the credit bureaus have added to your
Many, including a number of which count themselves among this nation's credit experts,tend to miss this concept. They focus solely on the strict definition of inaccurate reporting and don't see the broader concept of fairness that the Fair Credit Reporting Act is truly about. They continue to preach that people are only able to dispute listings that are patently inaccurate even though modern case law has amended the definition of inaccurate negative items to also include items that are untimely, misleading, incomplete, ambiguous, unverifiable, biased or unclear (collectively known as "questionable" items).
Your credit score is based on the information recorded in your credit file. If you do not feel your credit score is an accurate depiction of your actual credit worthiness, it is your privilege and your responsibility to work to remedy this. Disputing the questionable negative items with the credit reporting agencies is the method made available by the Fair Credit Reporting Act for you to enforce your right to fair credit reporting.
Lexington Law helps clients dispute the questionable negative listings in their credit reports as well as providing additional credit repair services extending beyond credit bureau disputes. In 2008, Lexington Law's clients saw over 600,000 negative items removed from their credit reports.