Letter to Bush on PFB!

Someone e-mailed this to me. It was found on PlanetFeedback:

Credit Bureaus are pathetic


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To: President George W. Bush

I realize running this great nation of ours is a tremendous responsibility that takes an incredible amount of time and energy. I'd like to offer you a suggestion that I feel would benefit you and the country. I am a taxpayer and a voter, and I hope and expect you'll give this suggestion serious consideration.

I am writing to you to voice my frustration and anger with the way credit bureaus operate. The current laws on the books(the Fair Credit Reporting Act) do not do nearly enough to control these corporations and their minions, collection agencies.

Experian, Transunion, Equifax have created a system of "guilty until proven innocent" that is next to impossible for an ordinary citizen to combat. These corporate monoliths control almost every aspect of daily life. You cannot rent an apartment, buy a car, get utility service, and many others, without these three goliaths approval. Your car insurance rate is even affected by your credit rating!!! Apparently if I am a late on a credit card payment it means that I am a bad driver.

These credit bureaus put anything that is sent to them on your report and the onus is on you to get it removed. For example, I have several inaccurate entries from collection agencies on my credit reports. I dispute them with the credit bureaus and they supposedly "verify" them. Basically this means that they confirm what has already been placed on your report with whoever placed it there. They don't have to get proof or do any actual "verification. This basically boils down like this.

1. Company A places incorrect negative information on your credit report.

2. You dispute the information.

3. Credit bureau supposedly contacts Company A and says "Is this correct"? Of course, Company A says "Yes it is" What purpose does this serve? They somehow came up with the incorrect information in the first place so of course that is the information that they have in their system. Imagine if the criminal justice system worked this way. Person A accuses Person B. Judge asks Person A "Did you accuse Person B? Person A replies "Why yes I did". Verdict: Guilty.

4. Credit bureau denies dispute and tells you that you have to contact the Company A yourself.

5. You contact Company A and demand validation of this alleged debt. By law they are required to do this but 99 times out of 100 they just send you a printout from their computer even when you specify that they must provide actual proof(i.e.signed contract).

6.Many letters, phone calls, countless wasted hours dealing with abusive companies to no avail. You are up the proverbial creek. You have only one option left and that is to sue them.

This system is terribly flawed and something must be done. Why are consumers deemed to be guilty until proven innocent? It is patently unfair that ordinary citizens must fight these multimillion-dollar corporations at their own expense.

The burden of proof should lie with these credit bureaus, not the individual citizen. They publish these reports but recognize no real duty to ensure accuracy even though they are required by law to do so. The laws currently on the books provide no real means of forcing these companies to comply. A violation of the FCRA carries with it a $1000 fine. This is absurd. The credit bureaus basically screw millions of people and the few who are savvy enough and have the resources to fight them in court might be able to get a small amount of relief. The vast majority are out of luck and are at the mercy of predatory lenders, landlords, and insurance agents. The credit bureaus view these fines as simply a cost of doing business. I'm sure it is cheaper to just do business the way they currently do because 99% of the people never fight them.

The power being wielded by these credit bureaus is completely disproportionate to the amount of regulation they are subjected to. Your credit history becomes more and more vital to everyday life with each passing day. I urge you to introduce legislation to properly regulate these corporations.

Obviously there is a need for accurate credit information to be made available to potential lenders so they can assess their risk. The current system is riddled with corruption, greed, and abuse. I again urge you to take steps to rectify this situation.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you'll act on this suggestion, and I expect to hear from you soon.

From:
Kellie M.
Manchester, NH

 

Kellie,
That is such a great letter. Keep it up...we should all keep it up in attacking this awful system which makes the public jump thru burning hoops just to get satisfaction that their reports are "accurate." I could catalog a whole series of inaccuracies on mine since I started looking at them regularly. There still has never been one, not even one, moment in time when any of my reports from the big 3 were ever correct. I sometimes can't believe this is America, it's certainly not what our forefathers had in mind.

Mist