| Comment Number: | 522110-00036 |
| Received: | 5/18/2006 7:01:40 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Ronald Edwards |
| State: | GA |
| Subject: | Procedures to Enhance the Accuracy and Integrity of Information Furnished to Consumer Reporting Agencies |
| Title: | Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Parts 660 and 661 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
Why do you not enforce the FCRA as written? When you obtain your credit file and review for accuracy, a majority will have inaccurate or incomplete data. You take a lot of time documenting these issues, submitting for investigation, get the results back as "verified as accurate", write the creditor, get no response, document and send this to the CRA, get them to re-investigate, they come back as "verified as accurate", etc, etc. Shame on you! It costs around $100 per month to obtain, review, type, mail (certified of course), and so forth. The damage to the FICO scores are immeasurable and the long term implications to consumers are lost opportunity, absurd interest rates, etc. For about 1 year now, I have been in this cycle. I have reviewed testimony to various governing bodies, testimony from workers in the Credit Reporting industry, reviewed lawsuits......it's just embarassing. My wife and I dispute in exactly the same manner, and the same time to track consistency in the "dispute process" - amazing! I can get an account removed, and they leave it on hers. Next time she maight get it removed, and it comes back on mine. I could write a book on the inefficiencies this "consumer disputing method" produces. And no one seems to care. If you get direct with the furnisher, they send you back a letter threatening you with "harassement". If you get direct with a CRA, they label your dispute as "frivilious" and nothing happens. If you truly want feedback on how this system causes consumers to suffer "adverse action", then contact me at the information provided above - I'll send you a complete set of blunders, violations of the FCRA, violations of the FDCPA, etc. It will take more than 4000 characters though. As a taxpaying citizen of this country, I have the right to expect compliance of the law. You, me, them....honestly, what hope do I have that you will take this any more seriously than the Financial community that I have been dealing with? In summary, furnishers are "not" held accountable for their actions (the computer says.............."get real" - people input data and make mistakes. Databases have revisions/update all the time - that causes problems with data, etc...), neither are the CRA's, period! They almost dare you to do anything, CRA's will not send you information that you request so that you have the opportunity to review - it's just amazing how this system has transposed itself into yet "another government sponsered event that takes money from the consumers" - just pitiful. Please do something that you can feel good about with this legislation. It does the consumer no good to have laws to protect them, when you do not have any incentative to enforce them. Why? My guess, "MONEY" - if you can keep the FICO scores down (by all kinds of clever tricks the CRA's are all to familiar with), you effectively "trap" a consumer with his/her borrower (at higher interest rates I'm sure), you prohibit them from shopping for a better deal (financially), you limit them on what they are able to purchase, you limit them on dreams and opportunities they might have, and so forth. What an American tragedy, the very laws set forth to "protect" the consumers from unfair business practices have been used to "penalize" consumers and limit their opportunities. Your response?