Consumers have commonly and more often than not registered surprise over their suddenly-plummeting credit reports when they in fact have been doing every proper thing in their power to stay on deck and keep their scores high.
The answer accordingly lies on the actions credit bureaus such as Experian does and the methods they employ – which includes hiring sleuths to philosophically “dig up dirt” on the consumers. These sleuths, who more often than not lack qualifications for their jobs, send this “dirt information” to the credit score agencies, who then file this under the corresponding consumers. As mentioned, this method raises issues of not only of credibility of those who do the sleuthing, but also of accuracy. There have been reported cases of information being filed under the wrong name. The result is that the rather faultless person is charged with lower scores, a bad credit report, and given a number of many other inconveniences and problems. More often than not, the reason for the plummeted score is not revealed.
The consequence of bad credit reports and histories, as is known to most, is difficulty of getting a job, or even termination. Loans and mortgages could be cancelled by the agency by virtue of the bad credit history. The importance of accuracy of the filing of information therefore could not be undermined at all. Ed Mierzwinski of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group extrapolates that more than thousands of consumers may have been denied certain rightful privileges simply because of negative information attached to their names. With this problem is also the fact that most of these people are average working-class civilians who cannot afford to have lawsuit attorneys defend them and / or correct these mistakes. Therefore, instead of complaining, they silently bear the brunt of it all.
In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Equifax recently has been faced with federal lawsuits for mistakenly filed negative information and causing distress and undue inconvenience to certain consumers.
As of the present, aside from the Fair Credit Reporting Act that mandates credit bureaus to ensure accuracy and correct filing of information of consumers, other laws and mandates regarding this issue of digging up dirt seems vague. The result of this is continued dirt-digging practices of credit bureaus.
Hopes for clearer grounds on this matter is raised with the passing of the Financial Reform Bill, which reportedly could act as watchdog in financial and credit issues such as these.
Experts advise people to stay on the alert for such money blunders, and if anything seems suspicious, or if the consumer is accused of having a bad history knowing that he or she does not, immediately clarify this and demand investigation from the bureau which generated it. Joining class action lawsuits is also an option.
