Millions of people are frustrated with the Big Three credit bureaus – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. In 2025, 5 million people filed complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) against these companies. Credit reports are full of errors, such as debts resulting from identity theft, information belonging to other people (known as “mixed files”), and even living consumers marked as dead. The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) landmark study found that one in five consumers has a verified error in their credit report, and one in 20 has a serious error.
The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires credit bureaus to conduct a “reasonable investigation” when a consumer disputes an error, but the credit bureaus have adopted an automated travesty of a system for dispute resolution. Bad court decisions have exacerbated the situation by inventing judicial doctrines that let credit bureaus off the hook even for egregious errors, such as failing to remove identity theft-related accounts, if they can characterize a dispute as “legal” or claim the inaccuracy is not “objective and verifiable.”
With the Trump Administration attempting to dismantle the CFPB, states must take up the mantle of protecting their residents from mistakes and abuses by the credit bureaus. This Issue Brief explores what states can do by adopting new laws or using existing state laws versions of the FCRA.
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