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The Right Choice Requires the Right Information
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FCRA/FACTA
Fair
Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
The
Fair Credit Reporting Act is designed to help ensure that CRAs
such as RIT furnish correct and complete information to businesses to use when
evaluating your application. A complete copy of the Fair Credit Reporting Act
(FCRA) can be found at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/031224fcra.pdf
The Fair
Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), enforced by the Federal Trade Commission,
promotes accuracy in consumer reports and is meant to ensure the privacy of the
information in them. The FCRA was recently amended by the
Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA) (PL 108-159,
12/04/03). The FACTA requires the Commission and other agencies to implement
many of the new provisions of the FCRA by means of
rules and regulations to be issued in 2004.
If
you've ever applied for a charge account, personal loan, insurance, or job,
there's a file about you. This file contains information on where you work and
live, how you pay your bills and whether you’ve been sued, arrested, or have
filed for bankruptcy. Companies that gather and sell this information are
called Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs). The most common type of CRA is the
credit bureau. The activities of other CRAs – such as tenant or employment
screening services, or agencies whose data is limited to your checkwriting
history – that offer reports on consumers in specific situations are also
governed by the FCRA. CRAs may sell information about you to creditors,
employers, insurers, and other businesses in the form of a consumer report.
In
addition to credit reports on file with credit bureaus, the FCRA may govern
other files of information collected and maintained on consumers, depending on
their content and use. Medical information and information used to prevent and
detect fraud are sometimes governed by the FCRA.
Learn
more about consumer rights and business responsibilities under the FCRA by
reviewing our
Consumer Education and
Business Guidance sections. To see the Commission’s recent FCRA
enforcement activities,
click here. You can also review our Commission
Testimony, information about
our FCRA related
workshops, and our
press releases and staff
opinion letters.
The above information can be found at:
http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/credit.html
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