federal Fair Credit Reporting Act

The FCRA gives you the right to be told if information in your credit file is used against you to deny your application for credit, employment or insurance. The FCRA also gives you the right to request and access all the information a consumer reporting agency has about you (this is called “file disclosure”).

1. You have the right to know what’s in your credit reports. The act requires credit reporting agencies to give you free access to the information they have collected about you and your financial habits once every 12 months.

Truth in Lending Act

The Red Flags Rule requires that each “financial institution” or “creditor”—which includes most securities firms—implement a written program to detect, prevent and mitigate identity theft in connection with the opening or maintenance of “covered accounts.” These include consumer accounts that permit multiple payments …

The Red Flags Rule1 requires many businesses and organizations to implement a written identity theft prevention program designed to detect the “red flags” of identity theft in their day-to-day operations, take steps to prevent the crime, and mitigate its damage.

If you identify an error on your credit report, you should start by disputing that information with the credit reporting company (Experian, Equifax, and/or Transunion). You should explain in writing what you think is wrong, why, and include copies of documents that support your dispute.

The FCRA ensures that credit reporting agencies (the companies that create consumer credit reports) only include true, verifiable information in your report and that it is kept private and only given to entities that have a valid reason – and, in most cases, your permission – to view it.

National Origin, or Sex — 12 CFR § 1002.6(b)(9) Except as otherwise permitted or required by law, a creditor shall not consider race, color, religion, national origin, or sex (or an applicant’s or other person’s decision not to provide the information) in any aspect of a credit transaction.

To file a credit reporting complaint, consumers can:

1. File online at www.consumerfinance.gov/Complaint.
2. Call the toll-free phone number at 1-855-411-CFPB (2372) or TTY/TDD phone number at 1-855-729-CFPB (2372)
3. Fax the CFPB at 1-855-237-2392.

You may be able to sue for credit damaged by: Erroneous reporting to credit bureaus of balances owed, late payments, etc. A divorce, wrongful dismissal at work, or personal injury that prevented you from being able to pay your bills, subsequently leading to late payments, missed payments, defaults and/or charge-offs.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) (15 U.S.C. § 1681 and following), you may sue a credit reporting agency for negligent or willful noncompliance with the law within two years after you discover the harmful behavior or within five years after the harmful behavior occurs, whichever is sooner.

If you believe any account information is incorrect, you should dispute the information to have it either removed or corrected. If, for example, you have a collection or multiple collections appearing on your credit reports and those debts do not belong to you, you can dispute them and have them removed.

False declines are valid credit card transactions that are mistakenly rejected by the bank and are one of the leading reasons consumers are unable to make purchases.

So, can cardholders file chargebacks for “non-refundable” credit card deposits? Yes, they can. As with any chargeback, providing there is a valid claim to a refund, the cardholder has the right to dispute a transaction. The merchant is unable or refuses to provide products or services related to this deposit.

The answer is … You’re off the hook! You don’t need to contact the credit bureaus to update the personal information on your credit reports. Instead, get in touch with your creditors and ask them to update your records with your new address, name or employer.

Send letters to the credit bureaus If the debt really is too old to be reported, it’s time to write to the credit bureau(s) to request its removal. When you dispute an old debt, the bureau will open an investigation and ask the creditor reporting it to verify the debt. If it can’t, the debt has to come off your report.

If your credit report contains inaccurate addresses, you can use a credit report dispute to remove them. You don’t have to remove old addresses simply because you no longer live there. It could raise a red flag if you report living at addresses that don’t show on your credit report.

You can create a new account to replace your existing one. Keep in mind, the information that was stored in your previous account, like any previous credit report history, won’t be available through your new account. If you have a Credit Karma Savings account, please do not replace your existing Credit Karma account.

Can there be more than one Credit Karma account per email address? At Credit Karma, we make security a priority. This means we can only allow one Credit Karma account per email address.