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Protecting Your Future: Stopping Credit Report Error
By U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown
Guest Column
Your credit report has an enormous impact on your financial
future. Banks, credit card companies, and employers all
reference credit reports when they decide whether to make a
loan to a potential customer or offer a job to a prospective
employee. That is why it’s critical that credit reporting
agencies maintain and provide accurate credit information
about consumers.
Yet too often millions of Americans have errors – not of
their own making – on their credit report. Making matters
worse, these mistakes can be nearly impossible to fix. A
2013 study by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that
one in five consumers had an error on their credit report.
While some errors are minor, others are financially
devastating. One in 20 Americans has an error on their
credit report serious enough to raise costs or make it
harder to take out a loan.
American consumers shouldn’t have to pay the price for
errors made by credit reporting agencies.
Last week, I introduced the Stop Errors in Credit Use and
Reporting (SECURE) Act to ensure that all have accurate
information on their credit report to ensure they are being
treated fairly.
The SECURE Act would require credit reporting
agencies to improve their processes for collecting and
matching consumer credit information and hold them
accountable by requiring agencies to inform the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) about the consumer
complaints they’ve received and their resolutions. If
agencies’ sloppy reporting practices cause widespread
errors, the FTC would have new power to impose penalties.
The Act would also give consumers the tools they need to
make informed financial decisions and to correct the record
if there are errors on their report. Consumers would finally
be able to request a free credit score each year, and they
would automatically receive and a free credit report
with the information their lender saw if they are denied a
loan or given an unfavorable interest rate because of their
credit history. And consumers disputing an error on their
credit report would be able to request that a judge order
the credit reporting agency to stop using a practice that
causes inaccuracies.
Ohioans’ financial futures should not be held hostage by an
inaccurate credit report or credit score. The SECURE Act
finally gives consumers the tools they need to correct the
record on their financial past and make the right decisions
for their financial future.
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