Suing The Credit Bureaus? Have A Purpose

Be wise about suing the credit bureaus

I’ve had a second email this month about “suing the credit bureaus” because they don’t have proof of the negative credit that they are reporting. Now hold on before you get all worked up!

In the guts of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, there is absolutely no requirement that the credit bureaus have any proof of what they report about you. I find that fascinating. They are supposed to at least have quality control to assure the public they are reporting accurate information. Of course there are numerous studies showing that the majority of consumers have errors on their credit reports. Touché!

The second part about suing anyone (and I am not a lawyer so this is strictly my opinion from what I have studied) is that you have to be able to prove that you have been, in this case, monetarily damaged by the actions or inaction’s of the other party. Can you show this?

In most of the cases that I have worked with doing credit restoration, the information reported was for the most part accurate, a late payment, a charged off account, that type of thing. The failure by the credit bureaus is that they never investigate the accuracy of what they are reporting until the consumer requests this under the FCRA. When this happens, the credit bureaus are required by law to request validation from the credit furnisher. What happens next is why accurate, legitimate credit can fall off of your credit report.

Why Accurate Information Can Fall Off of Your Credit Report

If the credit furnisher is unable or unwilling to respond within the 30 day time period allotted by the FCRA, then the credit bureau is obligated to remove that item from the credit report, whether it is accurate or not. This can occur if the original creditor no longer has records about the account or they just do not respond in time.

On the other hand, if the credit furnisher validates the information as accurate, the credit bureau will respond to the consumer that the disputed information will remain unchanged and note on your report that you disagree with the information. This would be the proper procedure. The information has now been verified with the original creditor so what would you sue the credit bureaus for.

In trying to restore a consumers credit this is one of the tactics credit repair companies will deploy. It is worth the effort and often works. If it doesn’t work, it is not the end of the world because there are other options to restoring and rebuilding your credit.