Your Credit Rights
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions
(FACT) Act of 2003, you have the right to require a credit reporting agency to do
several things to ensure that your credit rating is as accurate as possible.
A credit reporting agency must:
- Provide you with a complete credit report. You are entitled to a free credit
report anytime from any of the agencies if you have been denied credit, are a
victim of identity theft, receive welfare benefits or are unemployed but expect
to apply for employment in the next 60 days. You can request a free credit report
annually.
- Investigate, at your request, erroneous or missing information in your report.
The credit bureau must provide you with a written response, as well as a revised
copy of your credit report if the investigation resulted in changes.
- Keep your credit report information from anyone other than legitimate users
of the credit reporting agency.
- Remove detrimental credit information from your file after 7 years. Bankruptcy
information can be removed after 7 to 10 years.
Your Credit Responsibilities
When you receive your credit report, you have the responsibility to review it
and act on any errors you find.
- Understand the entries on the credit report. Each credit reporting agency’s
credit report contains information such as how long an account has been tracked,
the highest amount charged, the account balance at the time of the report and the
type of account. Other entries identify creditors that have viewed your credit
history. Codes indicate debtors’ arrangements, repossessions and bad debts, if
applicable.
- Ensure the credit report is accurate. Common errors include incorrect personal
information, missing information and failing to correct damaging information after
problems are resolved.
- Take action to correct errors. Document your actions and follow up until
the problem is resolved.
- Inform creditors when errors are identified. The credit reporting agency
must investigate the items in question — usually within 30 days — unless they
consider the dispute to clearly lack merit.
- Retain your written account of errors or discrepancies in your file.
If an investigation does not resolve the dispute to your satisfaction, you
have a right to add a statement to your credit report file contesting the
accuracy or completeness of the disputed information.
Use the Debt-Danger-Signals checklist to help you assess
if you are managing debt appropriately.
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Basic Money Management
Basic Money Management
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