Credit Bureaus Are the Enemy, Part 1
Credit bureaus don't care about you.
They are in business to make money, period.
They make the bulk of their money by providing services to subscribers, which pay them both to report and to pull credit reports.
They also make a great deal of money by selling information (names and addresses used for marketing) to prospective lenders and others.
They lose money every time they deal with you, the consumer.
Never forget it.
Legal action is usually the last thing they want, and they have no interest in tangling with you over something they are really indifferent about.
And yet letters from lawyers on behalf of clients in disagreement over reported information are becoming less and less effective.
Perhaps bureaus figure that most people don't have the cojones to follow through and sue them when they screw up.
I'm hoping you do; if enough people stand up to them, then and only then will things change.
In 2000, the FTC fined the Big Three $2.
5 million for preventing millions of consumers from discussing the contents of their credit reports by placing hurdles that made it difficult to contact them.
Be forewarned that credit reporting agencies have been known to shut down a consumer's credit file in response to a lawsuit.
When this occurs, any inquiry from a potential creditor will yield "file under review.
"21 This retaliatory action is intended to intimidate and frustrate, and yet there are remedies for any breach of the FCRA, as you will soon learn.
Now that you have received an introduction to how the credit bureaus operate, which is really only the tip of the iceberg, you might appreciate the following statement the chief executive officer of Equifax made to the Commonwealth Club of California on June 27, 2005, expressing his chagrin with FACTA's requirement that the bureaus provide consumers with one free credit report per year in an effort to curb identity theft: Our company felt, and still does .
.
.
that it's unconstitutional to cause a public company who has a fiduciary responsibility to return profit to shareholders to give away the product .
.
.
Most of my shareholder group did not think that giving away our product was the American way .
.
.
That's like turning on the smoke alarm once a year.
In fact, the so-called product he's referring to costs the credit bureaus next to nothing to make and deliver.
It's the subsequent consumer disputes, filed in an effort to correct inaccurate information, that cost the bureaus money.
God forbid their product should be made accurate-that would cut into shareholder profits and executive bonuses!
They are in business to make money, period.
They make the bulk of their money by providing services to subscribers, which pay them both to report and to pull credit reports.
They also make a great deal of money by selling information (names and addresses used for marketing) to prospective lenders and others.
They lose money every time they deal with you, the consumer.
Never forget it.
Legal action is usually the last thing they want, and they have no interest in tangling with you over something they are really indifferent about.
And yet letters from lawyers on behalf of clients in disagreement over reported information are becoming less and less effective.
Perhaps bureaus figure that most people don't have the cojones to follow through and sue them when they screw up.
I'm hoping you do; if enough people stand up to them, then and only then will things change.
In 2000, the FTC fined the Big Three $2.
5 million for preventing millions of consumers from discussing the contents of their credit reports by placing hurdles that made it difficult to contact them.
Be forewarned that credit reporting agencies have been known to shut down a consumer's credit file in response to a lawsuit.
When this occurs, any inquiry from a potential creditor will yield "file under review.
"21 This retaliatory action is intended to intimidate and frustrate, and yet there are remedies for any breach of the FCRA, as you will soon learn.
Now that you have received an introduction to how the credit bureaus operate, which is really only the tip of the iceberg, you might appreciate the following statement the chief executive officer of Equifax made to the Commonwealth Club of California on June 27, 2005, expressing his chagrin with FACTA's requirement that the bureaus provide consumers with one free credit report per year in an effort to curb identity theft: Our company felt, and still does .
.
.
that it's unconstitutional to cause a public company who has a fiduciary responsibility to return profit to shareholders to give away the product .
.
.
Most of my shareholder group did not think that giving away our product was the American way .
.
.
That's like turning on the smoke alarm once a year.
In fact, the so-called product he's referring to costs the credit bureaus next to nothing to make and deliver.
It's the subsequent consumer disputes, filed in an effort to correct inaccurate information, that cost the bureaus money.
God forbid their product should be made accurate-that would cut into shareholder profits and executive bonuses!
Source...