FTC Report on ID Theft Victims’ Experiences with Credit Reporting Agencies

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a staff report summarizing the results of a survey of identity theft victims, who were asked to describe their experiences dealing with consumer reporting agencies (CRAs); and, more generally, exercising their rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) as amended by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), to recover from identity theft. The survey showed that most of the respondents were generally satisfied with their experiences, but the report also noted areas for improvement.

Congress has established several rights under the FACTA to help actual or potential identity theft victims protect themselves from, and recover from, identity theft. These rights enable victims to place fraud alerts on their credit report with the consumer reporting agencies, request a free credit report from the three national consumer reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) when placing a fraud alert, block fraudulent information from appearing in their credit report, and receive a notice of these and other rights from the consumer reporting agencies.

Highlights

According to the report, Using FACTA Remedies: An FTC Staff Report on a Survey of Experience of Identity Theft Victims, the survey showed the following:

Sixty-eight percent of the survey respondents were somewhat or very satisfied with their overall experiences with the consumer reporting agencies, but many consumers said it was difficult to reach a live person.

Less than half of the respondents were aware of most of their rights under FACTA before they contacted the consumer reporting agencies.

Some respondents complained about feeling pressured to buy additional identity theft monitoring products when they called the consumer reporting agencies.

Conclusions

Three key points resulted from the report:

1. The consumer reporting agencies may need to make it easier for consumers to reach a live person.
2. The FTC and other enforcement agencies should do more to educate the public about their rights under FACTA.
3. The FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should use their respective authorities to address the consumer reporting agencies’ practices related to selling identity theft monitoring products or services when they are contacted by identity theft victims.

Based on a recommendation by the President’s Identity Theft Task Force in 2007, the FTC conducted the survey of consumers who had called the FTC’s identity theft hotline (1-877-ID-THEFT). The survey was designed to determine these consumers’ general satisfaction with their rights and to examine the types of problems they encountered.

The Federal Trade Commission works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint, visit the FTC’s online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357).

Credit Expert Witness, John Ulzheimer, is the President of Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com, the credit blogger for Mint.com, and a Contributor for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.  He is an expert on credit reporting, credit scoring and identity theft. Formerly of FICO, Equifax and Credit.com, John is the only recognized credit expert who actually comes from the credit industry.  Follow him on Twitter here.

Categorised in: Credit Monitoring, Credit Report, Credit Score, Government, Money & Identity

This post was written by John Ulzheimer