Your Credit Rights

Key Rights Contained in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a federal law that regulates how credit reporting agencies use your information. Enacted in 1970 and substantially amended in the late 1990s and again in 2003, the FCRA restricts who has access to your sensitive credit information and how that information can be used.

Summary of Key Rights

The FCRA is a complex piece of legislation and contains numerous provisions not discussed on this page. Below are several important features of how the FCRA that are designed to help consumers (for the complete text, visit the Federal Trade Commission). The FCRA protects you by ensuring that credit reporting agencies:

Disclose your credit report to you upon request. Credit reporting agencies must give you the information in your file if you ask for it and provide the agency with proper identification. See "To Receive Your Credit Report" below for more information.

Limit access to your information. A credit reporting company may not provide your credit report to any party that lacks a permissible purpose, such as the evaluation of an application for a loan, credit, service, or employment. Permissible purposes also include several business and legal uses. For details, see the full text of the summary of your rights.

Get your consent before providing your information to an employer. An agency may not give your credit information to an employer or potential employer unless you first give that employer written permission to request your credit.

Investigate disputed information. If you tell a credit reporting company that your file contains inaccurate information, the agency must promptly investigate the matter with the source that provided the information. If the investigation fails to resolve the dispute, you may add a statement explaining the matter to your credit file. For more information, see Fixing Errors on Your Report.

Correct or delete inaccurate information. A credit reporting company must correct or, as the case may be, delete from your credit file the information that is found to be inaccurate or can no longer be verified from your credit file. The credit reporting company is not required to remove accurate data from your file unless it is outdated or cannot be verified.

Delete outdated information. In general, negative information that is more than 7 years old (10 years for bankruptcies) must be removed from your file.

Remove your name from marketing lists upon request. Creditors and insurers may share information in your credit file with marketers who send you unsolicited offers. To request that the three credit reporting agencies not share your information with marketers, call 888-567-8688.

Disclose your credit score to you upon request. For a fee, you may get your credit score. In some mortgage transactions, you will get credit score information without charge. See "To Obtain Your Credit Score" below for more information.

Add identity theft and active duty alerts. Identity theft victims may place fraud alerts and active duty military personnel serving away from their regular duty station may place "active duty" alerts to help prevent identity theft.

To Receive Your Credit Report

By law, you are entitled to disclosure of your credit file. The charge is under $10.00 and may be reduced or free in some states.

You are entitled to one free report during any 12-month period no matter where you live, if you:

• Are unemployed and intend to apply for employment in the next 60 days
• Are on public welfare assistance
• Believe your file contains inaccurate information due to fraud
• You are also entitled to a free report if you have received notice of an adverse decision (such as denial of credit, insurance, or employment) within the past 60 days

To request a copy of your credit file please contact:

TransUnion

Equifax

Experian