U.S. PIRG Urges Consumers To Check Up On Credit Bureaus
A
leading consumer organization that has documented credit report errors
and identity theft problems announced today that consumers in the
Northeast will soon have new tools to fight these problems under a
federal law taking effect in 14 Northeastern states (See Below),
Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories on
September 1. Other regions of the country gained free report rights
beginning last December. U.S. PIRG also urged citizens to call on
Congress to preserve state rights to enact strong identity theft
protections.
“Starting
this week, consumers can check up on all three national credit bureaus
with just one website visit, one phone call or one letter,” said U.S.
PIRG Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski. According to a 2004 PIRG
report, 1 in 4 credit reports contain serious errors that could cause a
consumer to be denied credit.
Consumers
can log onto the government mandated site www.annualcreditreport.com to
get free credit reports from Experian, Equifax or Trans Union. Because
scam artists have purchased many similar web addresses, consumers may
want to instead call 877-322-8228 to obtain their reports. While credit
reports are free under the new law, credit scores, which are
mathematical summaries of the report, are not. U.S. PIRG recommended
that consumers also obtain at least one low-priced score, for about
$4-7, although they should avoid the high-priced credit monitoring
services that the bureaus also promote. This month, the Federal Trade
Commission fined the credit bureau Experian $950,000 and ordered it to
make refunds to consumers who had purchased its deceptively marketed
credit monitoring services.
“Instead
of paying for an over-priced deceptively advertised credit monitoring
service, consumers should consider staggering requests for free reports
by ordering one now and then one from each of the other two bureaus
every four months,” advised Mierzwinski.
Other
provisions of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003
(FACT Act), took effect nationwide on December 1, 2004. These include
the right to place fraud alerts on your credit report, to complain
directly to your bank about mistakes on your credit report and to
obtain information from businesses where you do not have an account but
an identity thief has used your name fraudulently. Despite the new
protections, U.S. PIRG opposed final passage of the FACT Act because it
imposed unacceptable permanent limits on most state rights to protect
their consumers.
“Fortunately,
Congress didn’t completely eviscerate state rights to protect consumers
in 2003, so the PIRGs prepared a model law to prevent identity theft,
parts of which have been enacted in two dozen states this year,” added
Mierzwinski. “Unfortunately, in response to the widely reported
security breaches at companies ranging from Bank of America to
Choicepoint, Congress may pass a weaker federal law that also
eliminates the right of the states to continue to better protect
consumer privacy.”
Highlights
of that 2004 model state law, the State Clean Credit and Identity Theft
Protection Act, prepared by U.S. PIRG and Consumers Union, publishers
of Consumer Reports, include the following key provisions under threat
of federal preemption:
-
It gives consumers the right to freeze access to their credit reports
(In 2005, at least eight states have joined California, Texas,
Louisiana and Vermont in providing this right); and
-
It gives consumers the same right to security breach notification as
California provides. This year, an additional twenty states have also
enacted breach laws.
“We
wouldn’t even know about all the security breaches nationwide if not
for California’s pioneering breach notification law,” added
Mierzwinski. “Yet, Congress may cave under industry pressure and enact
a weaker law while preventing states from passing stronger ones.”
14
Northeastern states now eligible for one free credit report per year
from each of the three credit bureaus: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North
Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West
Virginia.
