F.C.R.A (Fair Credit Reporting Act)

Hello, I’m Daniel Ware with Ware Law Firm. I’m your Mississippi consumer protection lawyer. I’ve been talking a lot about Fair Credit Reporting Act. A lot of people call and say, “this is on my credit report, it shows negative I want it off.” The Fair Credit Reporting Act is not designed to clean up your credit on a bill that you owe. The idea of the law is to ensure that your credit is accurate and correct.

So if you have a lot of debts to which you didn’t pay or were late on a payment, that’s really not to your benefit. Where you’re benefiting is where the information is incorrect, such as you’re only 30 days late, but yet the credit report is showing 120 days late, or they’re indicating a charge off on an account that you closed. It’s just inaccurate, it’s incorrect.

There are things you can do to make those corrections. Also, another thing is if you file bankruptcy, a lot of your debts had been discharged. However, on your credit report, you might show that it’s showing that I’m still owing or have a chargeoff. It should clearly show it was discharged in bankruptcy. Now, why does it show that? Because other creditors want to know before they loan you money – How many other debts do you have out there based on the amount of income you have? If it’s showing a bunch of charge-offs, they know that somebody could possibly sue you or try to collect it.

If you discharge those in bankruptcy, lawfully, they can’t do it. So that frees your credit up. So even if you file bankruptcy, you say my credit is bad anyway, does it matter? Yes, it does. Because you’re trying to rebuild, you’re trying to get that fresh start to rebuild your credit. Make sure that your credit report is showing accurately when you’re trying to build it up. A lot of times, creditors don’t do that. So you use the procedures under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to make this happen. If you have any questions give us a call at Ware Law Firm. Remember, when life’s unfair, it’s time to call Ware.