The FCRA

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) – was enacted in 1970 and was the first federal law to regulate the use of personal information by private businesses – those businesses being the CRAs.

The Act’s primary protection requires that CRAs follow “reasonable procedures” to protect the confidentiality, accuracy, and relevance of credit information. Generally, it states that you have the right to question any information on your credit reports that you feel may be questionable, such as accounts that you may feel are: inaccurate, misleading, untimely, ambiguous, incomplete, unverifiable, biased or vague.

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) – was enacted in 2003 to amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act, to prevent identity theft, improve resolution of consumer disputes, improve the accuracy of consumer records, make improvements in the use of, and consumer access to credit information. You can view a summary fact sheet on FACTA provisions at the Privacy Rights Clearing House Organization website here.

Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) – was enacted in 1977 to provide guidelines for collection agencies and attorneys which are seeking to collect legitimate debts, while providing protection and remedies for debtors.
Essentially, collection agencies fall under considerable scrutiny and legal requirements when it comes to the activity of debt collection. Employing your rights under this law is described comprehensively in the section of our Credit Library. Included in this section are the steps to follow that require CAs to validate a debt upon request, along with the steps and court case precedence to pursue legal action if necessary to force compliance.

Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) – enacted in 1974 to protect consumers from billing errors on “open end” credit accounts, such as credit cards, and revolving charge accounts – such as department store accounts. It does not cover installment contracts – loans or extensions of credit you repay on a fixed schedule.

The law defines a wide gamut of credit account problems as “billing errors.” These include a charge for something you didn’t buy, a charge with the wrong date or amount and a charge for goods or services that you didn’t receive or accept.

Once a mistake is identified you have 60 days to send a written dispute to the creditor notifying them of the mistake. They are required to acknowledge the dispute within 30 days and complete their investigation of the charge within 90 days. The law is really on the consumers’ side. With the proper steps, many of these billing errors are resolved in favor of the consumer. The FTC provides more information.