Credit Scores and the Fair Credit Reporting Act and How they Impact Your Credit Report

I know a ton of people who are convinced that if you need to repair your credit, then the Fair Credit Reporting Act is where everything starts. The FCRA is simply a single Federal Statute designed to help to protect the consumers instead of the Credit Reporting Agencies. Or another good way to put it would be to say it protects them FROM the Credit Reporting Agencies and their “somewhat shady” way of doing business.

While the FCRA is definitely the way to begin good credit repair, it is far from the end of the battle to a better credit score. Technically the FCRA simply regulates how the Credit Reporting Agencies treat consumers. Before this law was enacted in the early 1970’s, these bureaus were unregulated and could do and report just about anything they wanted and to anyone who was interested.

The FCRA can start you off to bettering your credit score if you are educated and know what it can do for you to help you both obtain and fix your report score. The FCRA assures that people can get their credit reports at a reasonable price or for free if denial of credit has been made. This can help you to get your credit report from all there major reporting agencies and starts you on the way to financial education on where you have gone wrong and right in your credit history. Attaining your credit report and knowing your scores is the first step to fixing your credit and the FCRA gives you this right for a much more reasonable cost than in the past.

The FCRA also regulates who has “permissible purpose” to acquire someone else’s credit report. This keeps the average joe or creditor from taking a “peek” at your report without your prior permission or with good enough reason as set forth in the FCRA. One great thing that came about with the FCRA was the delineation period. This means that once something has been placed on your report, the clock starts ticking and it is usually an average of 7 years before it has to be taken off. Bankruptcies can last as long as ten years or any bankruptcy related notations.

This is great news for consumers who have had there problems in the past but are now on the road to better credit and have improved their financial positions. It pays to keep “doing it right” when it comes to credit and in a number of years, once these negative items are forced to drop off, it can really bring up a person’s score quickly.

It is important to remember when going about any credit report repair that these reports are NOT official government documents as some may be led to believe but they are simply put out by privately owned companies and regulated by the FCRA and Federal Trade Commission. These Credit Reporting Agencies are not officially sanctioned agencies but simply the average corporation just trying to make a buck.

Don’t let the Credit Reporting Bureaus reputation and huge monolith type presence fool you, the FCRA regulates them and is on your side, not theirs. Put the Fair Credit Reporting Act to work for you.

Amy Pedersen, is penned as YourCreditScoreSecrets.com featured Credit Insider, whose articles provide insightful knowledge of the credit industry. Her article topics range from the nature of credit reports to the underlying problems facing credit scoring and the laws which support credit report repair.

Please see her website for more information:

Credit Repair Tips: http://www.yourcreditscoresecrets.com

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