CREDIT BUREAU SCHLOCK: BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND

I did two posts on the Experian credit bureau in August of 2006, when my credit report mysteriously vanished from the system, not to be located by even top Experian and Credit Manager officials. Credit Manager, a branch of Experian, is a paid service I have maintained for over 25 years to monitor my credit activity. See post one and two. My credit report returned to the system, again mysteriously, about two months later without a peep from anyone at Experian or Credit Manager. As if it had never really happened. The reason I use the term mysterious is that the timing was somewhat coincidental with some earlier posts I did on credit bureaus, mentioning Experian. Within minutes after the second post where I talked about Experian’s refusal to allow me to dispute the problem, I had several comments posted with complaints about credit bureaus, one specifically about Experian from someone obviously at the end of their patience. The person said that Experian is incompetent, which agreed with my earlier post comment. In the process of filing a dispute, this person also found out you can only go so far, and then they refuse to let you dispute further. In recent months readers’ interests have been overwhelmingly for more information on either credit bureau disputes or Experian specifically. Unfortunately, nothing new has happened to rectify the problem except a feeble attempt by Washington to look into the matter. The Boston Globe did a story on Barney Frank’s plan to hold hearings about consumers’ ability to correct errors on their credit reports. Frank is a Democrat from Massachusetts, and this was back in December of 2006. The Globe did another piece in June to update hearings that were held, but the findings reported are the same thing privacy advocates have been saying for years. Primarily, data is inaccurate, credit bureaus do not respond to consumer complaints, and victims are frustrated about where to turn. Frank blamed things on the FACT Act, a law meant to improve the credit reporting system passed in 2003, but hung in federal regulatory BS as usual. Obviously the public can’t turn to this Congress based on a statement by the Congressman: “Frank said that he hoped the hearing would spur the agencies to finish the rule (FACT Act), but that new legislation may be required to put the FTC in charge of implementation. Yeah. Like the legislation the Congress was going to pass to protect us from data breaches. Pathetic!