Credit Reporting Errors on the Rise

Americans are lodging more complaints regarding mistakes, errors, and other inaccurate information on their credit reports than before. As CBS News reports:

Credit score concerns accounted for slightly more than half of all complaints sent to the federal agency in 2020 and 2021, the nonprofit consumer advocacy group found. But during the first half of this year, that number has ballooned to three-quarters of all complaints.

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An analysis from the CFPB found that the three credit bureaus collectively resolved less than 2% of credit report complaints they received in 2021, down sharply from 25% in 2019.  The number of complaints Americans sent to the CFPB about inaccurate credit reports more than doubled between 2018 and 2021, Consumer Reports said. 

Resolving less than 2% of credit reporting complaint is an astonishing low number. This also indicates that help may be needed in making credit reporting errors to increase the chances of a correction.

This increase in credit reporting errors seems to be hitting the military community extra hard. KALB reports:

According to the CFPB’s Office of Veteran Affairs latest report, since 2011, service members, military families and veterans registered over 250,000 consumer complaints. In 2021 alone, 51% of those complaints were for “inaccurate information on their credit reports”.

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One of the major findings of the CFPB report was the major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, were failing to respond to military members’ credit complaints.

According to the report, in 2021 there was a 71% increase in the number of complaints military members filed, indicating the credit agency did not reply within 30 days or did not resolve the issue within 30 days.

Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are required under the FCRA to respond to credit reporting disputes for military and all civilians. If you need assistance in making a credit report dispute, please feel free to contact us.