Barister's Brain
As a regular feature in Quarterly Interest, our advice columnist, Barry Barrister, will answer a legal question the OSBC has received that we think would be of interest to bankers. Even though he's a fictional lawyer (arguably the best kind), Barry has insisted we include the caveat that the advice he dispenses is general in nature, and is not intended as a substitute for obtaining specific legal advice from counsel when necessary.
Dear Barry,
My customers are asking me how they can obtain a free copy of their credit report. I know Federal law recently mandated that consumers can obtain free reports, but I would like to give my customers a little more guidance about the particulars and the various ways they can access their reports. Can you help?
- Luke N. Formore in Leawood
Dear Luke::
As you indicated, an amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act now requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting agencies to provide consumers with a free copy of their credit report once every twelve months, upon request. The federal law states the free credit report program is to be phased in during a nine-month period, beginning on the west coast of the United States and moving east. Consumers in western states were eligible to request free reports as of December 2004. Consumers in Kansas were eligible to request free reports as of March 1, 2005. Consumers in some southern and eastern states are not eligible until later this year. The three nationwide consumer reporting companies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, have set up one central website, one toll-free number and one mailing address through which consumers can order free credit reports. Consumers must use this procedure in order to obtain the free reports. The website is www.ftc.gov/credit, the telephone number is 877-322-8228, and the address is: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. If the report is requested through the mail, your customer will need to fill out an Annual Credit Report Request Form, which can also be found at www.ftc.gov/credit. Online requesters can usually obtain immediate access to the free report, while ordering by phone or mail will take approximately 15 days following receipt of the request. Because the companies get their information from different sources, the credit report from each one will not be exactly the same. Therefore, it may be advisable to obtain copies from each company. You could further advise your customers that while they can order reports from all three companies at the same time if they want, they may want to stagger their requests over the 12-month period, in order to better monitor the status of their credit reports.
Finally, if you would like to provide more information on this subject to your customers, the Federal Trade Commission has created a free brochure that contains this basic information and a list of frequently asked questions and answers, which can be downloaded from the FTC's website, at www.ftc.gov.
Lawfully yours,
Barry
