Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Urges Credit Reporting Agencies To Fix Errors On Consumers’ Credit Reports Promptly
Anyone who has been in debt for a while, which is almost everyone two-and-a-half years after the COVID-19 pandemic first arrived in Florida, has seen advertisements by companies that promise to improve your credit score quickly for a price. While some of these are outright scams, others can genuinely give your credit score a modest boost. They do this by carefully reading your credit report, identifying erroneous information, and contacting the credit reporting agencies or the creditors who reported the wrong information and instructing them to remove it. The problem is that you can also do this without paying someone else to do it; it only requires an investment of time. The worse problem is that, if errors have been sitting around on your credit report for several months or more, then you have probably borrowed money for higher interest rates than you would have needed to pay if the credit reporting agencies had gotten it right the first time. Perhaps you have even applied for employment or housing, and your low credit score influenced the employer or landlord not to accept your application. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued a statement, saying that it is the credit reporting agencies’ job, not yours, to make sure that the information on your credit report is correct. If inaccuracies on your credit report are just one of several factors contributing to your low credit score, contact a Plantation credit repair lawyer.
CFPB Warns of Crackdown on Junk Data That Harms Consumers’ Credit Scores
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) receives complaints from consumers all the time about errors that the credit reporting agencies Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion have allowed to remain on the consumers’ credit reports to the detriment of the consumers’ credit scores, but a few of them really stand out. For example, some consumers claimed that creditors had informed the credit reporting agencies that the consumer had died, meanwhile, the consumer continued to spend money and pay bills as only the living can do. Other consumers claimed that their credit reports showed the consumer applying for loans when the consumer was a young child, and in some cases, before the consumer was even born.
The CFPB has issued an advisory opinion instructing credit reporting agencies to review consumers’ credit reports and to correct any errors before sending the reports to lenders, employers, or landlords. It referred to these inaccurate statements on consumers’ credit reports as “junk data,” much as, in a previous advisory opinion, it referred to overdraft fees and penalties for insufficient funds as “junk fees” before heavily restricting their use.
It’s a start, but removing inaccurate data from consumers’ credit reports probably is not anyone’s ticket to financial stability. You may still need the help of a credit repair attorney to address the root of the problem.
Contact a South Florida Debt Lawyer About Boosting Your Credit Score
A South Florida debt lawyer can help you if your low credit score is frustrating your efforts to find employment, desirable housing, and loans. Contact Nowack & Olson, PLLC in Plantation, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
americanbanker.com/news/cfpb-signals-imminent-crackdown-on-junk-data-in-credit-reports
