TransUnion will help debt collectors against you : Bad Credit Advisor

TransUnion will help debt collectors against you

I bet many of you are going to get a kick out of it. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or FDCPA was created in 1978 as a part of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, specifying strict guidelines under which debt collectors may conduct business, defining consumer rights and providing consumers with an avenue for disputing and obtaining debt validation information in order to ensure its accuracy. The FDCPA also prescribes penalties and remedies for violations of the Act. Basically it gives you some ammunition against collection agencies, prohibiting them from using abusive and deceptive collection practises among other things.

Well, today TransUnion announced that it will start utilizing data from FDCPA Case Listing Service LLC to provide an added feature for batch records delivered via TransUnion Collections Prioritization Engine. The new solution, named FDCPA Case Search, allows TransUnion to alert debt collectors about collection accounts that have previously been involved in FDCPA litigation to assist collectors in determining strategy. So basically, the idea is to help collection efforts against you, the consumer. Supposedly, in 2008, 5,383 cases were filed against collection agencies in U.S. District Court for alleged violations of the FDCPA. The expected figure for 2009 is well in excess of 7,000 for the whole year.

My heart goes out to those poor collection agencies, but I have always thought that the purpose of credit agencies, TransUnion included, is to simply gather, arrange, process and report. But then again, in a slow economy, everyone wants to make a buck. See Free TransUnion credit report, FICO score and dispute.

Tue Jun 23, 2009 02:06PM by Tony | More in Credit Bureaus | Comments (0)

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