You may have recently heard of a settlement of a TransUnion class action lawsuit. In that lawsuit, plaintiffs, along with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), alleged that TransUnion failed To follow the law when it came to doing background checks.
TransUnion is also one of the largest credit reporting agencies in the United States. It makes billions of dollars from selling credit reports to lenders eager to assess loan applicants’ creditworthiness. These credit reports have been the subject of some scrutiny lately. This is because errors and inaccuracies appear far too often on these TransUnion credit reports. When errors and inaccuracies appear on TransUnion credit reports, lenders do not get an accurate picture of your financial history. This affects you. You do not get the loan approvals you should get. You, if you do get the loans, might get those loans at interest rates that are higher than they should be. You might miss out on employment opportunities, rental opportunities, and other opportunities.
While this is not your fault, you do need to regularly monitor your TransUnion credit report to make sure that it is accurate. When you find an accuracy, you need to dispute TransUnion’s credit report so they can fix the error. This article explains how to do that.
Identifying Errors
The first step in the audit process is to request your TransUnion credit report. A federal law called the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) provides that TransUnion must provide consumers with a free credit report. You can receive a free TransUnion credit report every week. To request your free TransUnion credit report, visit TransUnion’s website or a website called www.annualcreditreport.com, follow the instructions on each, and request your report.
When your TransUnion credit report arrives, review it carefully. There are four sections in a TransUnion credit report: personal information, credit accounts, Inquiries, and public records. Review all of these carefully. What are you looking for? You are looking for any sort of misspelling of any type of personally identifiable information whether it’s your name, your street address, or your former street address. You are looking for any type of error in a Social Security number, your birth date, or your telephone number. One misspelling or typo could mean that someone else’s credit liabilities appear on your credit report.
In the account section, you are going to look for anything that is not 100% accurate. this could include the opening date of a credit card, the closing date of a credit card whether a credit card is open or closed, a balance on a credit card, a limit on a credit card, the amount you need to repay on your mortgage, the amount you need to pay on your auto loan, the amount you need to pay on your student loan, and the history of every payment to all of the above. confirming all these will take time but it is very important. potential lenders look at your credit report to determine what kind of borrower you are and then they use that information to determine if they will extend you a loan or additional credit and if so, the terms of that loan or credit. One erroneously reported late payment can have a devastating effect on your credit status.
You also need to check the inquiry section. Confirm that you recognize every credit inquiry on this TransUnion credit report. If there are any credit inquiries you do not recognize this could indicate that you have been the victim of identity theft. it will be important to correct these.
Resolving Errors
Resolving the errors in your TransUnion credit report begins with a conversation with a consumer protection attorney. Lawyers for consumer protection know credit reports, they know the laws that govern these credit reports, they know your rights, they know how to preserve your rights, and when necessary, know how to initiate legal action against TransUnion.
Unless the attorney tells you otherwise, the next step in resolving TransUnion’s error is writing a dispute letter to TransUnion. This should be a clear and concise letter identifying the errors in the credit report, identifying yourself, explaining that you want TransUnion to fix those errors, and explaining to TransUnion how you want them fixed.
Before you send that letter you will need to collect evidence to prove that the errors on your TransUnion credit report are errors. This evidence will take the form of old Bank statements, old credit card statements, old mortgage statements, and any relevant document that proves that the information on the TransUnion credit report is not accurate. make a copy of these documents because you will include the copy in your dispute letter.
Several ways to initiate a dispute with TransUnion. over the phone and online are two ways. We recommend filing your dispute with TransUnion by sending the letter you wrote via certified mail. sending the letter via certified mail accomplishes two things: 1. you have documentation proving when you sent the dispute letter and the substance of the dispute letter, and 2. while sending the letter via certified mail takes longer, it also preserves your rights to sue TransUnion later should that be necessary.
TransUnion has 30-45 days to investigate your dispute, to fix the errors, and then send you a letter letting you know their decision. If they do not respond, if they do not fix the error, or if they do anything less than what you have asked them to do, you should contact a consumer protection lawyer. You’ll get help figuring out how to sue TransUnion.
Auditing your TransUnion credit report can be a time-consuming task. But it is necessary if you want to make sure that your credit report is accurate and that your financial well-being will not be compromised due to someone else’s error.
The FTC and the CFPB are not the only ones looking out for you. We are too. And should you need it, we will be ready and eager to help you.
