Do It Yourself Credit Repair

The Fair Credit Reporting Act was enacted in 1970 to safeguard consumers against inaccuracies and inconsistencies on reported credit. This law allows consumers to dispute inaccurate and untruthful listings on their credit report. It also allows consumers to receive their own credit report entirely free of charge each year.

This is an important law when it comes to credit repair and most people who are familiar with credit know about this law. However there are two more laws involving to credit that have an effect on you as a consumer and a sound knowledge of all three of these laws is crucial to your credit repair efforts.

While the FCRA or the Fair Credit Reporting Act is the underpinning which makes all credit repair viable, the FCBA or the Fair Credit Billing Act and the FDCPA or the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are also important to a solid credit repair plan.

The Fair Credit Billing Act or as it is otherwise known by the acronym FCBA requires creditors to bill correctly and completely. It prohibits unauthorized charges, or charges that have the mistaken date or improper amount, any charges that are for goods or services that were not accepted by you or not delivered as agreed upon. A company must post payments and other credits and they must send billing notices to your current address if any changes of address were received 20 days prior to the billing cycle. The FCBA also allows a consumer to ask for written proof of purchase or requests for explanation from the company.

The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act was enacted to protect ordinary consumers from unreasonable and unfair collection agency tactics. Many collection agencies engaged in despicable practices in the past in order to collect a debt.

The FDCPA specifies reasonable collection practices. For illustration, a collection agency cannot get in touch with any third party who does not owe the debt. They cannot give out false bullying of reporting it on your credit or referring your account to an legal representative in order to terrorize you to pay. They are only allowed to call within logical hours, which are typically between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm unless they have your precise agreement to call at another times. They are not allowed to call you at troublesome or abnormal times or places if you let them know what is improper.

The FDCPA is very broad and it goes on about what is controlled and what is acceptable actions from the collection agencies. Just be attentive that they can call you within the hours and limitations unless you particularly and if at all possible in writing appeal that they stop. If you have questions about the entire boundary of this law you can do an Internet search and read it in its entirety.

All three of these laws are critical to you as a credit consumer. Each of them can be useful if you need to complete any repairs on your credit so it is astute to be responsive of them and search out the information if it becomes essential.