Last fall my husband filed a complaint/dispute at the FTC site online about our mortgage being listed twice on his credit report. It was listed once as a mortgage, then a second time as a revolving account that was close to maxed and in the 6 figures! These accounts were with the credit union. The credit union tried to correct the problems every month and every month they came back. Recently my husband lost his job. He has been turning in his resume all over with very high initial interest, then nothing.... So I ran his name threw Google today to see what I could see. There he is on the FIRST PAGE. His dispute to the FTC. His name, address and the entire comment he posted in thier online dispute form. This has been turned into a PDF file and is published for all the world to see. BY THE FTC!!! THis has got to be a HUGE violation of privacy laws.. and civil rights. When you file a dispute or complaint about inaccuracys on your credit report it is supposed to be confidential,, not put on GOOGLE!! We have called several attorneys and they dont know what to say. Dont know who to tell us to call. We even called our states attorney Generals office. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. It makes you feel kind of raped to see your personal dirty laundry posted online by the federal government for all the world to see.
Just ask them to remove it. Some complaints to FTC are public record, such as public comments on proposed actions. By what path does this complaint show up? If you entered an online complaint, was there a "privacy policy" like they require of private businesses, indicating how the information would be used? Not to make excuses for government, but with web sites, until someone brings a problem to someone's attention, there may be no effective way to ensure data that should be private is kept private. Once someone makes the mistake of posting it publicly, no one but you would know how private you expected the complaint to be kept. A basic needle in a haystack problem. A similar problem is occurring with court records, which as they are increasingly accessible on-line, may allow access to personal identification information if care is not taken to block it.
