Announced Action for December 19, 2003

Publication of Federal Register notice: The Commission has approved the publication of a Federal Register notice regarding the ceiling on allowable charges for certain disclosures under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). As detailed in the notice, which will be published shortly and is available on the FTC’s Web site, the ceiling on allowable charges for certain disclosures under the FCRA, Section 612(f)(1)(A), will remain at $9.00 during 2004. This section of the Act provides that, in those cases where the FCRA does not require the disclosure to be made without charge, a consumer reporting agency may charge a reasonable amount for making a disclosure to the consumer, provided the charge does not exceed a statutory maximum and is indicated to the consumer before the disclosure is made. The Act provides that the charge may not exceed $8.00, adjusted annually for inflation, with fractional changes rounded to the nearest 50 cents. The allowable charge first rose to $9.00 on January 1, 2002. The Commission vote to publish the notice in the Federal Register was 5-0. (File No. P974805; staff contact is Keith B. Anderson, Bureau of Economics, 202-326-3428.)

Copies of the documents mentioned in this release are available from the FTC’s Web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. Call toll-free: 1-877-FTC-HELP.