The starting point of most credit repair is the Honest Credit Reporting Act or the FCRA. This law was enacted back in 1970 to protect consumers from inaccuracies and inconsistencies on credit reports. This law enables consumers to dispute misleading or mistaken listings on their credit report. It also permits a consumer to obtain one free credit report each year from each of the three main credit bureaus.
On the whole people who know about credit and credit practices and repair are familiar with this law. But, there are two supplementary laws that affect you as a consumer and can be useful to you for credit repair and it is prudent to learn about these laws also.
The FCRA or Honest Credit Reporting Act is the basis for all credit repairs as it gives the consumer the right to dispute incorrect credit. But, the FCBA or the Honest Credit Billing Act and the FDCPA or the Honest Debt Collection Practices Act is also vital to a reliable repair plot.
The Honest Credit Billing Act otherwise identified by the acronym FCBA requires creditors to invoice correctly and completely. It prohibits illegal charges, charges that have the mistaken date or sum, charges for commodities or services that you did not agree to or were not delivered as chose upon, failure to post payments or other credits and failure to send bills to your present address, provided any changes of address were received 20 days previous to the billing cycle. It also allows you as the consumer to question for a written substantiation of buy and requests for explanation.
The FDCPA or the Honest Debt Collections Practices Act was enacted to defend everyday persons from unjust and extreme collection agencies and tactics. This law restricts debt collectors from engaging in some of the unacceptable conduct that they were well-known for in the past.
For example, a collection agency can no longer call any third party who does not owe the debt. They cannot issue fake intimidation of referring your case to an attorney or to reporting it on your credit in order to frighten you to pay. They can only phone you within sensible hours usually between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm except they have your agreement for them to call at other hours. They may not call you at not convenient or unusual times or places if you let them know that what is intolerable.
This law, the FDCPA is very wide-ranging and it has a long list of boundaries and acceptable conduct for collection agencies. Just be aware that you must specially and just to be safe, you should most likely do it in writing tell them when and where it is improper for them to call you. If you have any questions about the law you can do an Internet search and read it in its entirety.
These three laws are vital to you as a credit consumer. You can use any of them as a helpful measure when you need to accomplish credit repair so it is wise to be alert of them and know where to find additional information if essential.