The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) issued a 2019 report, Don’t Add Insult to Injury: Medical Debt & Credit Reports, detailing the severe burden medical debt places on consumers, particularly the consequences of the presence of medical debt on consumer credit reports. Over three years later, there have been many developments on the national and…
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This white paper provides an overview of the most significant uses of credit reports and credit scores for purposes other than credit underwriting. These non-credit uses include: Employment, Rental housing, Insurance, and others.
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Expenses for life-saving or medically necessary care are often unexpected, and can throw a family into an immediate financial crisis. This crisis is compounded when families cannot pay for these surprise expenses and the debt is reported to credit bureaus. The blemishes on a credit report (which employers and landlords as well as creditors may…
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Ten years ago, the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) issued Automated Injustice: How a Mechanized Dispute System Frustrates Consumers Seeking to Fix Errors in their Credit Reports, the landmark report on the serious dysfunctions in the American credit reporting system. Since then, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) began exercising supervision authority over the Big…
The foreclosure crisis of the late 2000s left an enormous trail of economic destruction in its wake. Most Americans are familiar with the obvious damage — the crisis cost nearly $200 billion in lost wealth, resulted in over 4.5 million Americans losing their homes,2 and triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression. One long-term…
A research consultant has recently produced several reports promoting utility company reporting of all customer payment behaviors and transactions to the major consumer reporting agencies (CRAs). Proponents of full utility reporting contend that it is required to help “thin file” and “no file” consumers to build credit history and gain access to bank loans and…
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