What are your rights as a consumer?

CRAs or consumer credit reporting agencies, such as Equifax, Experian, and Transunion, often collect credit information about you from credit companies, department stores, banks, and other financial institutions that offer you credit.

These consumer credit reporting agencies make money by selling the information they have collected in their databank, which usually include information about your credit profile. As a result, it's only wise that you, as a consumer, exercise your legal rights to know what is in your credit file in order to make sure they are accurate and challenge anything that is incorrect about you that these CRAs have collected.

Credit report agencies are mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act to let you know the contents of credit profile they have kept about you. You can contact a CRA by several methods:

1.) If you are denied a loan, you should contact the lender, who is required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act to let you know the address, name, and phone numbers of the credit reporting agency it used in evaluating your application for a loan.

2.) If you are just curious, you can find out the contents on your file by contacting one of the three credit reporting agencies, including Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. They are often listed in the telephone book under the term Credit Reporting Agencies.

3.) If you discover that your credit profile contains inaccurate information, you can challenge the inclusion of it in your file. If a lender has made an error, you can point it out to the lender and make a request that the corrected information be sent to the CRA so your credit profile can be be updated.