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Identity Theft and Other Mistakes
You'd think the information
contained in our consumer credit reports, which are bought and sold
daily to nearly anyone who requests and pays for them, would have to
always be correct. In actuality, it doesn't work that way.
Credit bureaus collect and compile billions of snippets of information
every year about consumer creditworthiness from banks and creditors and
public record sources such as lawsuits, tax liens and legal judgments.
The three major credit bureaus -- Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union --
maintain files on nearly 90 percent of all American adults. While
numbers don't lie, people often make mistakes. Whether it's keying
errors or communication snags, sometimes information gets corrupted.
Those consumer credit reports are routinely sold to credit grantors,
landlords, employers, insurance companies, and others interested in the
credit record of a consumer, and often (legally) without the consumer's
knowledge or permission. Usually consumers rarely check their credit
record until after they've been denied credit or otherwise encountered a
problem. Credit report errors have been a serious problem that several
states and Congress have addressed.
Consumer
Credit Report Accuracy Survey Findings:
- Twenty-nine percent
(29%) of the credit reports contained serious errors - false
delinquencies or accounts that did not belong to the consumer - that
could result in the denial of credit
- Forty-one percent
(41%) of the credit reports contained personal demographic
identifying information that was misspelled, long-outdated, belonged
to a stranger, or was otherwise incorrect
- Twenty percent (20%)
of the credit reports were missing major credit, loan, mortgage, or
other consumer accounts that demonstrate the creditworthiness of the
consumer
- Twenty-six percent
(26%) of the credit reports contained credit accounts that had been
closed by the consumer but incorrectly remained listed as open
- Altogether, 70% of the
credit reports contained either serious errors or other mistakes of
some kind.
Access to
Credit Report Findings:
- Of the consumers that
did obtain their credit reports, at least 14% of them were forced to
call back 3 or more times after receiving busy signals or had to
write a letter in order to receive their report
- And 12% of the
consumers waited two weeks or longer to receive their report once
they finished requesting it. It took more than a month for one
California man to receive his report
- Overall, 15% of
consumers who attempted to participate in the survey either made at
least 3 phone calls and never got through or requested their reports
but never received them
Check
Your Report Carefully
Although credit reports
contain vitally important information about most consumers, the accuracy
of those reports is far from guaranteed. While credit bureaus and
creditors have gone to great lengths to ensure that they have the right
to collect and compile monstrous lists of information about most of us,
mistakes in credit reports do happen, and more often than credit bureaus
and, also, banks and department stores (who are often responsible for
the mistakes) would like us to think. That's why it's a good idea to
keep an eye on your consumer credit report. To be safe, check it once a
year.
Until policymakers and credit bureaus do what it takes to set tougher
standards to prevent and clean-up mistakes, too many credit reports will
remain a ticking time bomb of dangerously inaccurate information. And
our good names will continue to be at risk, as we pay the price for
mistakes made by credit bureaus and other data dealers. |
