why are credit reporting agencys and companies that report to them not held accountable for damages when they?

They actually are held accountable.

But you need to understand how the law works. A few years ago, Congress recognized that the credit reporting industry was terribly flawed, and that over half the credit reports contained inaccurate information.

But they recognized that the credit bureau's were not totally at fault. Their job is to report what information creditors supply to them. They are not an investigative agency.

To cure this, Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Reporting Act. This law amended the Fair Credit Reporting Act by setting up clear procedures that the consumer could do to inspect and challenge inaccurate information.

That law set up a procedure for consumers to get a free credit report every year by going to http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ and also set a procedure to dispute inaccurate information.

But it places the burden on the consumer to uncover errors on their report, and basically gives the credit bureau some protection against being held liable for inaccurate information in their database. How can they be held liable for info they did not know was bad?

Therefore, in order to even consider filing a lawsuit, you must first give the credit bureau a chance to fix the errors. THEN if the problem is not fixed, you can sue them for damages. NOT before.

You are not going to be able to sue for damages at this time. I know it sucks, but that is how the law was written. You could sue the creditor for posting it to your report, but you also need to prove they did it with the knowledge the info is incorrect. That's next to impossible to prove.

It sounds like you are already disputing this info and they are in the process of removing the bad items.

This is a good lesson for everyone to learn. Get your free credit report every year, examine it carefully for errors, and dispute anything that is inaccurate.

You're right, they should be held accountable. The problem is that you need to find a lawyer and sue them for the incorrect information.

In order to sue them, you'll need to determine the amount of damage that they have incurred by their errors. Let's say their error cost you a 2% difference in your loan rate. This might equate to $50,000 of interest for a home purchase. Thus, you would only be able to sue them for $50,000 max for their error.

A lawyer would probably not bother with this case because they would want $25k for their efforts (they'll be spending a LOT of time fighting against a TEAM of lawyers who work for the credit reporting agency).

More than likely, the credit reporting agency will attempt to either bury you in legal actions, or fix the problem and then say that the "damage has been repaired and you are owed nothing".

At that point, you'll still need to pay your lawyer the $25k for fighting as hard as they did to get this fixed.

It's a losing battle.

Sometime in the future, I imagine someone will file a class-action lawsuit against credit reporting agencies to attempt to fix this.

Either that, or the state lawmakers will create new laws to better protect you in these cases.

Utility businesses most likely do not report back to the credit score bureaus. But if the account has been became over to collections, the gathering company will document the object. Do you continue to are living in which this corporation presents your electrical? If so, I might suppose resolving this account might be moment best on your loan corporation. Have you attempted contacting nearby businesses for help with the energy invoice? There are generally finances to be had for instances like yours. In any case, they don't seem to be going to attend a 12 months to begin a fee plan.

You'd have to file a class-action lawsuit against them for them to even consider any type of action to assist you...I'm not kidding, either. I'm sure you could find an attorney to take them on, PLUS you'd have a zillion people lining up behind you to join in the lawsuit against them.

They CAN be held liable, but to be able to go after them for damages you must understand your rights under the FCRA, FDCPA and state law.

This is why you should check your credit records at least annually. www.annualcreditreport.com. Erroneous data does get in there.