The Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) is a federal law that was created to protect you from unfair, inaccurate, or irresponsible credit reporting by Credit Reporting Agencies (“CRAs”). The FCRA also helps protect your confidential information from being used.
Our law firm can help you if you believe your rights have been violated. We take cases on contingency, which means that you do not pay us until you get paid.
The main three CRAs are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Any type of credit payment you have made can appear on the reports by these CRAs. The reports from the CRAs are what determine your credit score. Your credit score, along with your available income, is a key factor for most creditors who are considering your creditworthiness. As a result, these agencies and their reports can impact your ability to get any type of loan, mortgage, apartment, access to credit, rental car, etc.
The FCRA provides many rights including:
- You must be told if information in your file has been used against you.
- You have the right to know what is in your file
- You have the right to ask for a credit score.
- You have the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information.
- Consumer reporting agencies must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information. Inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information must be removed or corrected, usually within 30 days.
- Consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information.
You can see the complete list of rights here:
If someone violates your rights under the FCRA, you can possibly recover actual damages, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs. The type of remedy will depend on whether the violation was intentional or negligent and how you were harmed by the violation.
We make it our business to hold credit reporting agencies accountable for the ways in which they collect, share, and provide a fair representation of your credit data, as well as other personal information. If you feel you may have been a victim to one or several of the credit reporting agencies, please contact us and allow our dedicated staff and attorneys to evaluate your claim and explain how we can help.