You may have seen the recent 60 Minutes newscast about the frequency of credit report errors and how hard it is for consumers to dispute mistakes. Most people understand that your credit report will determine how much interest you pay for a car loan or mortgage. What is mostly unknown is the extent to which insurers, utilities and phone service providers also use these reports to decide how much to charge consumers.
The Federal Trade Commission conducted a study based on a sample of 1,001 consumers and identified that at least 1 in 4 consumers had a significant error on their credit report. The FTC stated the error rate may in fact be much higher, as their study was skewed toward younger consumers with shorter credit histories. Older adults have longer credit histories, increasing the odds of credit report errors.
The kicker is that the FTC found that correcting these errors resulted in 13% of consumers getting a higher credit score. So the question how much can a credit report error cost you? Let’s take a few examples. A new car finance is around $26,000. At today’s interest rates, a borrower would save over $2,000 on a 4 year loan just by having a 660 credit score instead of a 650. This same borrower would save $23,000 on the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage of $172,000.
Once you consider that at least 40 million consumers have an error on their credit reports, the overpayments on these loans is at least in the billions of dollars. Money that could be spent on education or housing or health care or savings. Do you have errors on your credit report? I recommend that you go to www.annualcreditreport.com and get a free copy of your credit report. This is the government sanctioned website. You get one free pull of your credit at this website, once a year.
What you need to know: Michigan Consumer Credit Lawyers can fix your credit report errors for FREE. We file the dispute letters, and get errors removed under the federal law, the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Our services are free to consumers, as the credit agencies must pay our costs and fees.
You need a credit attorney to stand up and fight for your rights. Don’t take on the hassle and headaches and end up getting nowhere – we can do it all for you, for FREE. We get the error removed and get you paid damages as well.
So if you see errors on your credit report, call or email Attorney Gary Nitzkin for a free consultation at (888) 293-2882. For more information about your credit rights as a consumer, visit our website at www.micreditlawyer.com for informative, how to videos on consumer financial protection.
