CFPB to rein in the credit bureaus

Written by |
Advertisement

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been given oversight over the nation’s three main credit bureaus, but you still may have to take matters into your own hands if you have an undeserved black mark on your credit file.

First, kudos to Columbus Dispatch  reporters Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner for their yearlong expose of Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

We have a system that has become central in what interest rate you pay on loans, what insurance rates you get, and whether or not you get a job offer in some cases. But the Big 3 credit bureaus are playing a game of horse shoes where close is good enough. The system is broken.

Well, guess what? Close is not good enough. People are having their financial lives harmed because of false information in their credit files. And the bureaus don’t care how much harm they cause you.

When you try to solve a problem, they outsource your call. We’re just vile garbage they package and make money on. They only look at us as individual data points they can slice and dice, profile and build dossiers on, and then sell the info again and again.

They don’t think of you as the customer, so why should they be concerned with you? Their only customers are the insurers, banks, lenders, or employers that buy their reports.

The CFPB will now have to figure how to rein in the rogues at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. These three companies are an embarrassment to American capitalism; a perversion of the free market; and they’re contemptuous of fellow citizens.

It’s time there is a cop on the beat. I hope the CFPB is up to it.

Meanwhile, as the Columbus Dispatch found, the only way to get errors on your report removed may be to sue the credit bureaus. I know many people are fed up in America with our litigious society, but here’s the thing: The credit bureaus have set up a non-system that leaves you no other choice.

Check your credit reports today at AnnualCreditReport.com to see if there’s any wrong info out there about you.
 

Advertisement
Advertisement
  • Show Comments Hide Comments