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Credit Report Error Could Cost You Money

Michael Agruss

Written and Reviewed by Michael Agruss

  • Managing Partner and Personal Injury Lawyer at Mike Agruss Law.
  • Over 20 years of experience in Personal Injury.
  • Over 8000+ consumer rights cases settled.
  • Graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law: Juris Doctor, 2004.

The U.S. credit reporting industry is not a civic institution, by any means; it’s set up to force people to pay for past mistakes, regardless of the circumstances. And the playing field is not level; a recent study by the Federal Trade Commission has found that five percent of people had errors on one of their three major credit reports, which increases what they have to pay for an auto loan, insurance policy, or mortgage.The FTC’s study was mandated by Congress; the director of FTC’s Bureau of Economics, Howard Shelanski, had this to say: “These are eye-opening numbers for American consumers. The results of this first-of-its-kind study make it clear that consumers should check their credit reports regularly. If they don’t, they are potentially putting their pocketbooks at risk.” Participants in the study were advised to make use of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)’s means of resolving possible errors on their credit report. The FTC’s study also discovered that one out of four people found errors on their credit reports which affected their overall scores; one out of five people had errors that were corrected by a credit reporting agency (CRA) after dispute; four out of five people who filed a dispute had difficulty changing their credit report; over one in ten people had changes to their credit reports after filing disputes; and one out of twenty people saw their credit scores change by more than 25 points when the errors were fixed.“Your credit report has information about your finances and your bill-paying history, so it’s important to make sure it’s accurate,” said Charles Harwood, Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The good news for consumers is that credit reports are free through annualcreditreport.com, and if you find an error, you can work with the credit reporting company to fix it.” And even if your credit score is really low, there are means to fix it, whether or not you’re currently in debt and being pursued by collection agencies.If a collection agency has harassed you, you may be entitled to money damages up to $1,000.00, based on the FDCPA, which has been around for almost 35 years. The FDCPA is a federal law that applies to every state. In other words, everyone is protected by the FDCPA. The FDCPA is essentially a laundry list of what debt collectors can and cannot do while collecting a debt, as well as things debt collectors must do while collecting a debt. Plus, the FDCPA has a fee-shift provision. This means, the collection agency pays your attorney’s fees and costs. Founding attorney, Michael Agruss, has settled over 1,500 debt collection harassment cases. We want to help you, too. 

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