How to Use the FCRA to Protect Your Credit - What the Fair Credit Reporting Act Does

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, FCRA, is your key to protecting your credit report.

You've heard about having rights to a fair credit report.
Here, in plain English, is an explanation of your most
important rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Our country runs on credit and credit information
and the credit reporting behind them.
Of course there are the obvious uses of credit
to purchase things for later payment, but as more
and more people are finding out, credit reports are used
for much more than that.

They often impact employment decisions, housing decisions
and rates, business equipment lease rates, and insurance
availability and price, among other things. Many employers
look at credit reports as part of the hiring decision.
A bad credit can hurt your chances for many jobs ...

And simply disqualify you from some jobs.
Bad credit has a high price in so many ways.
So what's on a credit report? Why does it make
so much difference?

As you probably know, your credit transactions
and payment history are in your credit report.
your attempts to obtain credit are there, too,
and so are certain "lifestyle" things like arrest records,
certain work disciplinary investigations -- even traffic tickets.
It's all centralized and ready for government or others to use
against you. Your job is to limit the damage -- and increase the advantage -- that information does you.

There are three "main" credit reporting agencies, and several other, more specialized ones. There are approximately over a billion credit events reported per year and tens of thousands of credit disputes filed per month.

They make plenty of mistakes and trample over the rights of people all the time. Good things don't happen by accident.

If you want your credit report to be "right," you're going to
have to see to it.

As important as all the interests affected by it are,
the credit reporting network (the businesses which
create and publish your credit information)
is a vast and largely faceless bureaucracy.

The FCRA was designed to safeguard the accuracy,
fairness and privacy of information in the files of consumers
held by the reporting agencies and create some accountability
and protect consumers from some of its abuses.

Here is a list of your major rights under the FCRA.
This isn't a complete, exact replication of your rights