27 Aug Let’s Face It, The Credit Bureaus Suck…
Why The Credit Bureaus Suck!
If everyone on the planet had one dollar each, these 3 companies would be worth more than the combined population of the Earth. All together, these businesses grossed $8,414,000,000. That’s more than half the gross domestic product of Iceland. They service over 1 billion customers worldwide and employ nearly 30,000 people.
How do they make all this money? Not by making a better hamburger or designing sexier jeans. They trade in information. Our information. You give them a reason to exist by having a credit history and by seeking out new lines of credit.
They are very powerful companies with access and control over sensitive information. They probably know more about your finances than your own family does. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA) of 1970 enforces the protection of the privacy and accuracy of the information these companies maintain, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.
Equifax’s bad behavior helped create the FRCA
The FRCA came into existence partly because of the shady practices of the Retail Credit Company, the prior name of Equifax. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the Retail Credit Company dug up information about any person’s childhood, job, politics, marriage problems, sex life, and more. Then they sold that information to anyone.
Equifax continued to have troubles after the passage of the FRCA. The Federal Trade Commission fined them in 2000 and again in 2003 for blocking and delaying calls from customers who wanted information about their own credit history.
In 2013, Equifax lost a multi-million-dollar lawsuit to a woman who claimed that they merged her records with another person. She had tried to correct her record by calling and writing, but Equifax refused to delete the false information.
Experian gave up too much information
Experian has black marks on its history, too. One of their subsidiaries sold information about hundreds of thousands of Americans to a man who resold it to websites that perpetrate identity fraud. The information included Social Security numbers, mother’s maiden names, and bank account numbers.
In 2015, Experian was hacked and up to 15 million people had their private information stolen. This included cellular phone customers of T-Mobile that uses Experian to do credit checks.
Transunion and the 6-year delay
Transunion isn’t in the clear, either. They also lost a multimillion dollar lawsuit in 2003 for failing to correct errors on a credit report. The woman who filed against them said she tried for 6 years to fix her credit history with Transunion.
“Experts” in information
All three bureaus have admitted that “some mistakes” are “unavoidable.” A decade ago, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that nearly 80% of the credit reports contained errors, with a quarter of those errors grave enough to damage a person’s credit severely.
Yet another lawsuit and settlement
These information brokers that know so much about our lives keep getting sued because they just can’t, or won’t, get it right. The New York Attorney General announced a http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/09/pf/credit-reporting-agencies-settlement/settlement with the bureaus in 2015. Now they have to use trained employees to handle requests for corrections. What were they using before?
Don’t go into battle alone
It’s clear that these companies don’t have any real interest in helping you, or providing an accurate representation of your ability to take out and pay on a loan. They are part of a system that was build to hold you back! Frankly, that sucks for the average consumer, but the good news is there are people out there that are willing to take a risk and go to battle against these data agencies on your behalf! Honore’ Credit Consultants was formed specifically to help consumers, like yourself, to have a voice against the companies who are determined to hold you back from reaching your goals and having financial freedom!
Call one of our credit consultants today so we can discuss options for helping to improve your credit profile! (844) 967-3724