COVID-19 Impacts Credit Reporting Disputes

A column in the LA Times reports that Macy’s has furloughed its dispute department. This suggests that any customer that sees inaccurate information from Macy’s on their credit report and tries to dispute it through Macy’s would find no one to answer the phone or process the dispute:

Scott told me she had to make repeated calls to Macy’s before she finally reached a supervisor who would address the issue.

“The supervisor said there was nothing they could do,” she recalled. “She said they’d furloughed the entire dispute-resolution department and I’d have to wait until it reopened, maybe in May, maybe later.”

While this is concerning, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires the credit reporting bureaus like Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion to remove any information that can’t be verified by the furnisher. Therefore, presumably, if a customer were to dispute inaccurate information through one of the CRAs, it should be removed since there would be no one at Macy’s to verify it. In practice, it is unknown if this is happening.

Another part of the story:

The company said it was “moving to the absolute minimum workforce needed to maintain basic operations. This means the majority of our colleagues will go on furlough.”

Similar moves were announced by Nordstrom, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Gap, Best Buy and other prominent retailers.

While it is understandable that creditors have minimized face-to-face contact, credit dispute processing should be able to be done remotely through electronic means.