FICO Scores and Your Credit Rights
Our credit score and credit report are a couple of the most important things we have when being considered for a loan or more. In many cases, it seems like everything depends on your credit score. This in many ways is very true for everyone as your credit report is what contains everything about you...financially. Knowing this, do credit reports really contain EVERYTHING about a person? If so, couldn"t there be some things that any person may deem as a little risky about any individual or something that a potential lender, employer or landlord just may not like about the applicant? With this in mind, the FTC has actually set some ground rules for those seeking credit, jobs and more. And in order to keep it fair for everyone, they have created laws which protect consumers such as The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), and The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
The Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) really enforces the privacy and accurate reporting of information in consumers" credit reports that are provided by credit reporting agencies. In addition to this, consumers are also given the opportunity to always know who has made an inquiry on their credit as well as give consumers the right to dispute any item on their credit report that they deem as inaccurate.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) is a law that was passed in order to protect consumers from any type of discrimination having to do with religion, sex, ethnicity, marital status or even any public assistance that one may have received in the past. None of this can be considered by potential lenders when a person is applying for a loan. Now, many potential creditors, landlords and more do have the right to inquire about such items with the exception of religion. However, creditworthiness cannot be determined based on any of these facts. In addition, if a person feels they have been discriminated against in regards to one of these factors, then they have the right to receive reasons for why they have been denied credit.
The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) is the law that gives consumers the procedure in which to follow if they ever feel as though something is in error on their credit billing statements and EFT statements. This law provides consumers a way to defend themselves if the creditor is in error in regards to either reporting on their statement or the actual delivery of the billing statement. For example, if a creditor does not send your billing statement to a new address and you gave them notice of at least 20 days of your change of address, you would be protected under this act.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) protects those who are being contacted by debt collectors and such. This law protects individuals from any collectors who may be unfair, abusive, deceptive and more in order to collect what is owed on household and personal debts such as car payments or medical payments. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act has created some rules that collectors must abide by such as only calling between 8 am to 9pm, always identifying themselves on the phone, not calling the debtor at their workplace knowing that their employer would not approve of such calls, or any type of tactic that would normally be considered as harassment, lying, cheating or more. In addition, the FDCPA also states that a debtor can stop the collector from calling by sending out a written request for the debt collector(s) to stop calling them immediately.