What are the FCRA guidelines regarding payments & reporting?

[DR527]

I was wondering if the FCRA had a section for this odd hypothetical?

Let say that I decided to stop paying my mortgage loan for six months. I went from January 1st 2024 to June 1st 2024, without making a single payment. And for whatever reason the bank never noticed. In this example I have been flying under the radar for half a year. And then I decide that I've played with fire for too long. And I call up my mortgage company on June 15th 2024. Explain the situation, and make six months worth of payments on the spot. July 1st comes around and I am 100% paid up.

That the hypothetical scenario. Now here is the hypothetical question.

If my due date each month is the 1st of the month, but my account doesn't get reported until the 25th of each month. And on June 26th a day after reporting it finally updates. Keeping in mind my account hasn't updated in half a year. What is the mortgage company legally obligated to report? Is it my payment history as it is now, or my payment history as they prosive it? What will the updated report read according to the FCRA ? Will it show six months of late payments? Or six months of on time payments? And why?

This question has been rattling around in my head for a few days. I skimmed through the FCRA guidelines, but I couldn't find much that would answer this hypothetical question. The FCRA doesn't plan and expects people to go half a year without paying their obligation. And it doesn't give much wiggle room for banks who furniture your credit report to complete drop the ball in reporting timely payments. 

[GZG]

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@DR527 wrote:

I was wondering if the FCRA had a section for this odd hypothetical?

That the hypothetical scenario. Now here is the hypothetical question.

If my due date each month is the 1st of the month, but my account doesn't get reported until the 25th of each month. And on June 26th a day after reporting it finally updates. Keeping in mind my account hasn't updated in half a year. What is the mortgage company legally obligated to report? Is it my payment history as it is now, or my payment history as they prosive it? What will the updated report read according to the FCRA ? Will it show six months of late payments? Or six months of on time payments? And why?

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if they report information, that information must be accurate.

that's it. 

there's no requirement for them to report your tradeline, to report on time payments, report lates or to report anything etc, but under FCRA, if they do report, it must be accurate.

how they will end up reporting is completely up to them. 

they might have reporting requirements stemming from elsewhere, but afaik according to FCRA, if they report, it must be accurate and that's it.

[DR527]

Thanks, I'm not sure if your saying its a legal grey area that can be argued both ways. Or if it's completely on how the bank chooses to report it? What did you mean by reporting requirements stemming from elsewhere? Would those requirements supersede the FCRA? This question has been driven me nuts. 

[Slabenstein]

You don't need to spend any grief on this question.  The answer is easy and exactly as @GZG says: the institution must report accurately, if they report.  Thus, in your hypothetical, it would be up to the institution to report those months they (inexplicably) missed.  If they did report those months, then they would show the appropriate late status.  If they did not report, the months they chose not to would show "no data".

[GZG]

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@DR527 wrote:

Thanks, I'm not sure if your saying its a legal grey area that can be argued both ways. Or if it's completely on how the bank chooses to report it? What did you mean by reporting requirements stemming from elsewhere? Would those requirements supersede the FCRA? This question has been driven me nuts. 

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yeah nothing supersedes FCRA.

If they report they must be accurate, but there is nothing in FCRA requiring them to report anything if they don't want to.

you can't sue for the non-reporting of something like you could for an inaccurate reporting of something under FCRA

all I was saying is that they might be required to report for other non-FCRA reasons that I'm not fully aware of.

[GZG]

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@DR527 wrote:

I was wondering if the FCRA had a section for this odd hypothetical?

If my due date each month is the 1st of the month, but my account doesn't get reported until the 25th of each month. And on June 26th a day after reporting it finally updates. Keeping in mind my account hasn't updated in half a year. What is the mortgage company legally obligated to report? Is it my payment history as it is now, or my payment history as they prosive it? What will the updated report read according to the FCRA ? Will it show six months of late payments? Or six months of on time payments? And why?

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in reality, what ends up happening typically when a creditor reports again after a long period of not reporting is that they report accurately everything that was missed in the previous reporting months, even if they weren't reporting that prior 

but they wouldn't be legally obligated to do so, per FCRA, just that if they do report something it has to be accurate

[DR527]

See I get the  bank choice to use "No Data" to represent the six missed months. I don't understand the banks ability to report the account as late. If your credit report is a snapshot of your credit history and not a full picture of it. But thank you for your feedback I definitely appreciate it. 

[GZG]

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@DR527 wrote:

See I get the  bank choice to use "No Data" to represent the six missed months. I don't understand the banks ability to report the account as late. If your credit report is a snapshot of your credit history and not a full picture of it. But thank you for your feedback I definitely appreciate it. 

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the bank isn't choosing anything, they literally did not report when it says no data

and a credit report is not a snapshot, it's literally a history of the past 7 years (for payment history) and a lifetime history from when you were 18 for all accounts currently open and closed within the last 10 years that you have 

so they can absoutely choose not to report something for 6 years and then in the 7th year report it accurately 

[Slabenstein]

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@DR527 wrote:

See I get the  bank choice to use "No Data" to represent the six missed months. I don't understand the banks ability to report the account as late. If your credit report is a snapshot of your credit history and not a full picture of it. But thank you for your feedback I definitely appreciate it. 

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If a payment was late, the lender can report it as late.  Full stop.   

If the reporting on an account lapsed and then  the lender sends an update to the bureaus, they can report any lates during the lapse.

If a lender mistakenly reports a late as on time, they can correct it to the appropriate late status.

The only thing they can't do is report a late when there wasn't one.

[DR527]

Your payment history is a snapshot of your overall history account. The only thing that appears on your credit profile is the information from the end of your cycle date to the reporting date. Which is why you can use a CC all month long, evening maxing it out. But if you pay it off before it reports. The CC reports to the CRA as a zero balance as if no one is using it. You also just said "the bank isn't choosing anything" "they can absoutely choose not to report something". How are these not conflicting statements and or lawful with the FCRA?