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A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) promotes the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of information in the files of consumer reporting agencies. There are many types of consumer reporting agencies, including credit bureaus and specialty agencies (such as agencies that sell information about check writing histories, medical records, and rental history records). Here is a summary of your major rights under the FCRA. For more information, including information about additional rights, go
to www.ftc.gov/credit or write to:

Consumer Response Center
Room 130-A, Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20580.

• You must be told if information in your file has been used against you. Anyone who uses a credit report or another type of consumer report to deny your application for credit, insurance, or employment – or to take another adverse action against you – must tell you, and must give you the name, address, and phone number of the agency that provided the information.

• You have the right to know what is in your file. You may request and obtain all the information about you in the files of a consumer reporting agency (your “file disclosure”). You will be required to provide proper identification, which may include your Social Security number. In many cases, the disclosure will be free. You are entitled to a free file disclosure if:

• a person has taken adverse action against you because of information in your credit report;

• you are the victim of identify theft and place a fraud alert in your file;

• your file contains inaccurate information as a result of fraud;

• you are on public assistance;

• you are unemployed but expect to apply for employment within 60 days.

In addition, by September 2005 all consumers will be entitled to one free disclosure every 12
months upon request from each nationwide credit bureau and from nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies. See www.ftc.gov/credit for additional information.

• You have the right to ask for a credit score. Credit scores are numerical summaries of your credit-worthiness based on information from credit bureaus. You may request a credit score
from consumer reporting agencies that create scores or distribute scores used in residential real property loans, but you will have to pay for it. In some mortgage transactions, you will receive
credit score information for free from the mortgage lender.

• You have the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information. If you identify information in your file that is incomplete or inaccurate, and report it to the consumer reporting
agency, the agency must investigate unless your dispute is frivolous. See www.ftc.gov/credit for an explanation of dispute procedures.

• Consumer reporting agencies must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information. Inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable information must be removed or corrected, usually within 30 days. However, a consumer reporting agency may
continue to report information it has verified as accurate.

• Consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information. In most cases, a consumer reporting agency may not report negative information that is more than seven years old, or bankruptcies that are more than 10 years old.

• Access to your file is limited. A consumer reporting agency may provide information about you only to people with a valid need -- usually to consider an application with a creditor, insurer, employer, landlord, or other business. The FCRA specifies those with a valid need for access.

• You must give your consent for reports to be provided to employers. A consumer reporting agency may not give out information about you to your employer, or a potential
employer, without your written consent given to the employer. Written consent generally is not required in the trucking industry. For more information, go to www.ftc.gov/credit.

• You may limit “prescreened” offers of credit and insurance you get based on information in your credit report. Unsolicited “prescreened” offers for credit and insurance must include
a toll-free phone number you can call if you choose to remove your name and address from the lists these offers are based on. You may opt-out with the nationwide credit bureaus at
1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688).

• You may seek damages from violators. If a consumer reporting agency, or, in some cases, a user of consumer reports or a furnisher of information to a consumer reporting agency violates
the FCRA, you may be able to sue in state or federal court.

• Identity theft victims and active duty military personnel have additional rights. For more information, visit www.ftc.gov/credit.
States may enforce the FCRA, and many states have their own consumer reporting laws. In some cases, you may have more rights under state law. For more information, contact your state
or local consumer protection agency or your state Attorney General.

Credit counseling
Keep your debt in check

4/18/05 - Before Hibbert Hill left for a study-abroad program in Australia last spring, he signed up for another credit card. One more wouldn't hurt, thought Hill, then a sophomore at Iowa State University. "I didn't plan on using [the card]," says Hill. "But Australia was a blast." The price tag? Over $10,000.

Luckily for Hill and others in his predicament--the average college student carries $2,327 in credit card debt--some schools are providing credit counseling to their students. Montana State University in Bozeman, for example, operates Student Advocates for Financial Education. During a typical session at the busy office, counselors help students map out a budget, track expenditures, and find ways to cut back on expenses. "Tuition has gone up, the cost of living has gone up, and student wages have not kept pace," says Deborah Haynes, an associate professor at the school who oversees the program.

Payback. Students up to their ears in debt can also turn to nonprofit credit counseling firms. These organizations can work out repayment plans directly with creditors or consolidate bills into one monthly statement, something on-campus centers may not be able to do. But be wary of scams. Counseling should be free or nearly so, and debt-management plans shouldn't cost more than $50 to set up and $35 in monthly charges, says Travis Plunkett, legislative director with the Consumer Federation of America.

Back at Iowa State, Hill struggled to make ends meet, barely affording the monthly minimum charge on four credit cards and a line of credit. He went to the Financial Counseling Clinic at Iowa State, which offers to work with creditors to lower interest rates, but quickly realized he needed a more disciplined approach. He left school to move in with his parents in Minnesota and is now taking classes at a local community college. And he signed up with Lutheran Social Services, a nonprofit group in Duluth, Minn., that offers credit counseling and debt management.

Hill is now on a tight budget. Two thirds of what he earns each month working at a bank goes toward his credit card debt: He pays $65 to Lutheran Social Services each month--the organization keeps $5 and disperses the rest to two credit card companies--and coughs up an additional $420 to pay off his other cards and the line of credit. "It's a big burden," he says. "But it's going to be solved." -Nisha Ramachandran