Protecting the Rights of Consumers For Over 25 Years

On October 26, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an Advisory Opinion warning that consumer reporting agencies, which have an obligation to "follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy” of credit reports, must have procedures to detect and eliminate inconsistent and illogical information on credit reports. Examples given by the CFPB include:

1. An account whose status is paid in full, and thus has no balance due but nevertheless reflects a balance due.

2. An account that reflects an “Original Loan Amount” that increases over time.

3. A Date of First Delinquency reported for an account whose records reflect no delinquency, such as through activity reflecting a current account (complete history of timely payments, $0 amount overdue) or through a current account status code; 

4. A Date of First Delinquency that post-dates a charge-off date (logically, the beginning of a delinquency must be before it is 120-180 days past due).

5. Date of First Delinquency, or date of last payment, that predates the account open date (for non-collection accounts).

6. A date of account opening, account closing, last payment, or first delinquency that is in the future or predates the consumer's listed date of birth. The latter may result from the mixing of files between the consumer and someone (often a relative) with the same name.

7. A "deceased" notation on one account when other accounts are active.

8. Tradelines that predate the consumer's age of majority. These often result from identity theft.