FCRA and FOIA Request of a Creditor

[ranger2992]

My question relates to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the FTC which manages it. According to FCRA, very furnishor of credit information is required to have a policy explaining how they will do business (FCRA 623 (e). What I would like to be able to do is do a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FTC to see a copy of a creditors policy.

The reason I would like to go this route is I am very tired of hearing Bank of America say they "will not, EVER do a goodwill correction" They say they are "required as per FCRA to provide accurate information". I have been all the way to the top of the company on this, and I can not get them to bend at all. They ofcourse will not provide me with a copy of their policy that makes them think this, nor will they provide any legal documentation showing they are required to report negative information. I get the "it's proprietory information" and that their lawyers have ruled on this.

It is truly amazing that these guys do this. We are talking to 30 day late payments I had last year. These were directly related to the government shutdown, and the fact I couldn't pay on time due to the summer furlough, and complete shutdown in October. They have no flexability regarding this matter. I really don't know what to do, but I don't want to give up. I am thinking about starting a website about the way they do business, and the fact they got billions of dollars of taxpayer money when they messed up with their finances.

Anybody have any thoughts?

(A)

establish and maintain guidelines for use by each person that

furnishes information to a consumer reporting agency regarding

the accuracy and integrity of the information relating to con

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sumers that such entities furnish to consumer reporting agen

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cies, and update such guidelines as often as necessary; and

[Anonymous]

I hear that phrase  a lot..."we are required by law to report" when rrequesting  goodwill. I often wonder "what law" it is that they cannot remove etc.

[ranger2992]

my biggest thing is I am not a give up type of guy. I am in the process of getting every senior executive, and members of the board of directors contact information right now. I will write, and call every one of them.

[RobertEG]

Interesting approach, but apt to get contentious.

As a former senior federal executive, I handled hundreds of FOIA requests, so share some insight in its requirements.....

FCRA 623(e) imposes a requriement on certain federal agencies and furnishers to implement standards and guidelines.

16 CFR 660 covers the agencies.  Check, in particular, Appendix A.

As for internal policies implemented by furnishers, while the agencies, such as the FTC, can acess those policies, I know of no federal rules requiring agencies to collect and maintan a record of all such policies.

FOIA requests include the stipulation that federal agencies are not required to conduct research or produce analysis in order to meet requests for information. 

It is limited to documents they produce or maintain in their normal course of business.  

I would speculate that the FTC may respond to a FOIA request for such internal private policies by stating that they dont maintian such documents in their normal course of business.

And you cannot, of course, send a FOIA request to a private business.

Keep us posted....

[ranger2992]

Thanks for the explanation. It will help me taylor my request. Since I work for the gov myself, I am going to use our own internal policy as my guideline. It should put me into the ball park as far as limits.

[ranger2992]

I am getting close to giving up. I will follow this idea, but besides this, I really don't know to do. I gathered all of the email addresses of senior executives, only to find out they block all outside email. I tried from my personal, government, and retired email accounts, and nothing would cross over. It is incredible at how far the customer service branches of these organizations will go to keep custommers away from leadership. I guess I will go with snail mail, but I am sure they will just shred those as well.

[ZiggstergetsaREFI]

Did you ever get an email through to execs at BofA? If not, send me a private message. I was able to get email through a couple of years ago.