Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Can Help You With Your Credit Report Errors

From our friendly lender Dan Dobbs: useful information on the new consumer protections put into place by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau....

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) now allows consumers to “directly dispute” misinformation by directly uploading their complaints on line.
Complaints can be fact checked effectively, and resolved quickly.

And the CFPB is handing out million dollar fines and certifying class action lawsuits against violators.

Consumers now have a “hammer” to force the three credit bureaus and credit vendors to clean up their records.

To begin the complaint process go to their website(CFPB).
The CFPB estimates that 55% of all credit reports have significant inaccurate information.

Below are the most common examples of misreporting.

a) Information is “not creditor’s

b) Belongs to someone else, identity theft, fraud, etc.

c) Account terms are reported wrong

d) Creditor name/info, balance, payment, etc.

e) A ccount status

f) Paid bill on time, account closed, etc.

g) Wrong date of birth, address, etc.

h) Inaccurate public records (Bankruptcy, judgments, etc).

i) Reinserted (previously deleted) information

j) Credit Reporting company's investigation was flawed



To dispute an issue, the consumer must first order a credit report from each bureau and file a dispute for each derogatory item with the specific credit reporting bureau.

Once the bureau has reviewed the filing, they must (within 30 days) inform the consumer the results of their investigation.

Assuming the investigation is negative, the consumer should appeal to the CFPB for relief. Continue reading this post on Dan Dobbs site. And Don't forget if you have questions on your mortgage - are interested in refinance or even a new mortgage Dan is really great place to start. Give him a call at 949-250-3981

Treasury Department Issues Statement

Yesterday, November 18th, the Treasury Department issued a statement about the measures the government is taking to help home owners in distress. It is interesting to read for two reasons. One if you are in a modification program you can compare what you are being told and what the governments stated objective is for that program. Two, if you are wondering what options are really out there and confused by the media coverage it is spelled out pretty clearly in this speech.

To see the whole statement visit my page about it on this blog or use this link Treasury Department Statement.

States Try To Ban Employer Credit Check

There has been debate, at least on the state level that employers shouldn't be able to discriminate against a potential employee with bad credit.  Several states are proposing legislation to actually ban employers from checking most potential new hires credit.

This brings up an interesting debate.  Should someone who has pressing credit and financial problems be working say, in a casino accounting job or a bank?  Or how about the person who just had an honest run of bad luck in these tough economic times and got behind on some bills or had to short sale their home?

As we work our way though any kind of economic recovery I have to wonder what will happen to the established credit scoring system.  It has been reported that some 28% of the people in the country are in some sort of distressed situation with their homes.  All of that has to have a devastating effect on the crucial credit score. Which leads me to ask how can we really have a full economic recovery without some sort of change to this system?  How can we really recover of a quarter of the population is shut out of not only lending (cars, homes, school loans?)  but perhaps even jobs.  Read more in the link below to the Associated press story as published in the Houston Chronicle.

States may ban credit checks on job applicants....some lawmakers believe the measures are a trap for people trying to get out of debt.
By KATHLEEN MILLER Associated Press