This is part four of a four-part series that looks at how inaccurate credit reporting is being fought by attorneys, the CFPB, and state AGs.
CFPB Nails Credit Repair Doctors: The credit bureaus not only make mistakes, they fail to conduct adequate reinvestigations of disputes or remove inaccurate information. Instead of complying with these FCRA responsibilities, the bureaus have developed their own lucrative direct-to-consumer channel for selling credit monitoring and identity-theft services to concerned consumers. But, the credit bureaus are so sloppy they’ve also fomented (spawned) an entire add-on predatory industry — last-dollar credit repair doctors — that takes advantage of the heightened consumer interest in higher credit scores that’s been driven by the bureaus’ scare-tactic marketing of their own absurdly-priced monitoring products. This week, the CFPB announced penalties of $2 million against 4 California-based credit repair doctors that “charged illegal fees and misled consumers about their ability to fix their credit.” These “doctors” falsely claimed they could “repair” your credit. Of course, no one can remove accurate, negative information.