claimed to be owed to hospitals and other med-
ical providers. These trade lines affect the re-
ports of nearly one-fifth of all consumers in the 
credit reporting system. 
(D) The Consumer Bureau has found that 
there are no objective or enforceable standards 
that determine when a debt can or should be 
reported as a collection trade line. Because debt 
buyers and collectors determine whether, when, 
and for how long to report a collection account, 
there is only a limited relationship between the 
time period reported, the severity of a delin-
quency, and when or whether a collection trade 
line appears on a consumer’s credit report. 
(E) Medical bills can be complex and con-
fusing for many consumers, which results in 
consumers’ uncertainty about what they owe, to 
whom, when, or for what, that may cause some 
people, who ordinarily pay their bills on time, to 
delay or withhold payments on their medical 
debts. This uncertainty can also result in med-
ical collections appearing on consumer reports. 
In a December 2014 report titled ‘‘Consumer 
Credit Reports: A Study of Medical and Non- 
Medical Collections’’, the Consumer Bureau 
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found that a large portion of consumers with 
medical collections show no other evidence of fi-
nancial distress and are consumers who ordi-
narily pay their other financial obligations on 
time. Unlike with most credit products or serv-
ices, such as credit cards, installment loans, 
utilities, or wireless or cable services that have 
contractual account disclosures describing the 
terms and conditions of use, most consumers 
are not told what their out-of-pocket medical 
costs will be in advance. Consumers needing ur-
gent or emergency care rarely know, or are pro-
vided, the cost of a medical treatment or proce-
dure before the service is rendered. 
(F) The Consumer Bureau concluded that 
the presence of medical collections is less pre-
dictive of future defaults or serious delin-
quencies than the presence of a nonmedical col-
lection in a study titled ‘‘Data Point: Medical 
Debt and Credit Scores’’, issued in May 2014. 
(G) FICO’s latest credit scoring model, 
‘‘FICO 9’’, changes the treatment of paid col-
lections to disregard any collection matters that 
the consumer has paid in full. FICO 9, how-
ever, is not yet widely used by lenders. 
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(H) VantageScore’s latest credit scoring 
model, ‘‘VantageScore 4.0’’, will be available in 
the fall of 2017. This model will penalize med-
ical collections less than non-medical ones. 
(I) The three nationwide CRAs entered 
into a settlement agreement with the New York 
State attorney general in 2015 to address defi-
ciencies in their dispute resolution process and 
enhance the accuracy of items on reports. These 
policy changes will be implemented in a three- 
phased rollout, culminating by June 2018. Sub-
sequently, these CRAs entered into a coopera-
tive agreement with 31 State Attorneys Gen-
eral, which was the basis of the creation of the 
National Consumer Assistance Plan (‘‘NCAP’’) 
to change some of their business practices. 
(J) While the CRAs appear to be volun-
tarily adopting policy changes on a nationwide 
basis, they are not obligated to do so for con-
sumers who reside in States that are not party 
to any of the consent orders. 
(K) As a result of the settlement agree-
ments, the three nationwide CRAs will set a 
180-day waiting period before including medical 
collections on a report and will remove a med-
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ical collection from a report once it is paid by 
an insurance company. While this change will 
benefit many, once a medical collection appears 
on a report, it will only be deleted or suppressed 
if it is found to have been the insurance com-
pany’s obligation to pay and the insurer pays it. 
Given the research showing there is little pre-
dictive value in medical debt information, med-
ical collections that are paid or settled should 
quickly be removed from a report, regardless of 
who pays or settles this debt. 
(8) FINANCIAL ABUSE BY KNOWN PERSONS.— 
(A) Financial abuse and exploitation are 
frequently associated with domestic violence. 
This type of abuse may result in fraudulent 
charges to a credit card or having fraudulent 
accounts created by the abuser in the survivor’s 
name that could affect ratings by CRAs. Finan-
cial abuse may also result in the survivor’s in-
ability to make timely payments on their valid 
obligations due to loss or changes in income 
that can occur when their abuser steals from or 
coerces the survivor to relinquish their pay-
checks or savings that could affect ratings by 
CRAs. 
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(B) By racking up substantial debts in the 
survivor’s name, abusers are able to exercise fi-
nancial control over their survivors to make it 
economically difficult for the survivor, whose 
credit is often destroyed, to escape the situa-
tion. 
(C) Domestic abuse survivors with poor 
credit are likely to face significant obstacles in 
establishing financial independence from their 
abusers. This can be due, in part, because con-
sumer reports may be used when a person at-
tempts to obtain a checking account, housing, 
insurance, utilities, employment, and even a se-
curity clearance as required for certain jobs. 
(D) Providing documentation of identity 
(‘‘ID’’) theft in order to dispute information on 
one’s consumer report can be particularly chal-
lenging for those who know their financial 
abuser. 
(E) While it is easier for consumers who 
obtain a police report to remove fraudulent in-
formation from their consumer report and pre-
vent it from reappearing in the future, accord-
ing to the Empire Justice Center, safety and 
other noncredit concerns may impact the capac-
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consumers as the same credit scores typically 
used by lenders to determine creditworthiness 
and for luring consumers into costly subscrip-
tion services that were advertised as ‘‘free’’ or 
‘‘$1’’ that automatically charged recurring fees 
unless cancelled by consumers. The Consumer 
Bureau also found that Equifax was illegally 
advertising its products on web pages that con-
sumers 
accessed 
through 
AnnualCreditReport.com before consumers ob-
tained their free disclosures. Because of these 
troubling practices, TransUnion was ordered to 
pay $13.9 million in restitution to harmed con-
sumers and a civil penalty of $3 million to the 
Consumer Bureau. Equifax was ordered to pay 
more than $3.7 million to affected consumers 
as well as a civil money penalty of $2.5 million 
to the Consumer Bureau. As part of the con-
sent orders, the CRAs are also supposed to 
change the way that they sell their products to 
consumers. The CRAs must also obtain con-
sumers’ express consent before enrolling them 
into subscription services as well as make it 
easer for consumers to cancel these programs. 
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(C) The Consumer Bureau fined the other 
nationwide CRA—Experian—in March 2017 
for deceiving consumers about the use of credit 
scores that it marketed and sold to consumers 
as credit scores that were used by lenders and 
for illegally advertising its products on web 
pages 
that 
consumers 
accessed 
through 
AnnualCreditReport.com before they obtained 
their free annual disclosures. Experian was or-
dered to pay more than $3.7 million in restitu-
tion to harmed consumers and a civil monetary 
penalty of $2.5 million to the Consumer Bu-
reau. 
(D) The Consumer Bureau’s January and 
March 2017 consent orders with the three na-
tionwide CRAs show that these CRAs have en-
ticed consumers into purchasing products and 
services that they may not want or need, in 
some instances by advertising products or serv-
ices ‘‘free’’ that automatically converted into an 
ongoing subscription service at the regular price 
unless cancelled by the consumer. Although 
these CRAs must now change their deceptive 
marketing practices, codifying these duties is an 
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appropriate way to ensure that these companies 
never revert back to such misleading tactics. 
(E) Given the ubiquitous use of consumer 
reports in consumers’ lives and the fact that 
consumers’ participation in the credit reporting 
system is involuntary, CRAs should also 
prioritize providing consumers with the effective 
means to safeguard their personal and financial 
information and improve their credit standing, 
rather than seeking to exploit consumers’ con-
cerns and confusion about credit reporting and 
scoring, to boost their companies’ profits. 
(F) Vulnerable consumers, who have legiti-
mate concerns about the security of their per-
sonal and financial information, deserve clear, 
accurate, and transparent information about 
the credit reporting tools that may be available 
to them, such as fraud alerts and freezes. 
(10) CLARITY IN CREDIT SCORING.— 
(A) The February 2015 report of the Bu-
reau of Consumer Financial Protection titled 
‘‘Consumer Voices on Credit Reports and 
Scores’’ found that some consumers are reluc-
tant to comparison shop for loans and other 
types of consumer credit products out of fear 
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that they will lower their credit scores by doing 
so. 
(B) The Consumer Bureau found that one 
of the most common barriers for people in re-
viewing their own credit reports and shopping 
for the best credit terms was a lack of under-
standing of the differences between ‘‘soft’’ and 
‘‘hard’’ inquiries and whether requesting a copy 
of their own report would adversely impact their 
credit standing. 
(C) The Bureau of Consumer Financial 
Protection revealed that consumers with accu-
rate perceptions of their creditworthiness may 
be better equipped to shop for favorable credit 
terms. 
(11) CREDIT CHECKS AND EMPLOYMENT DECI-
SIONS.— 
(A) The use of consumer reports as a fac-
tor in making hiring decisions has been found 
to be prevalent in a diverse array of occupa-
tions, and is not limited to certain high-level 
management or executive positions. 
(B) According to the California Labor 
Federation, only 25 percent of employers re-
searched the credit history of job applicants in 
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1998. However, this practice had increased to 
43 percent by 2006 and to 60 percent by 2011. 
(C) A study titled ‘‘Do Job Applicant 
Credit Histories Predict Job Performance Ap-
praisal Ratings or Termination Decisions?’’, 
published in 2012, found that, while credit his-
tory might conceptually measure a person’s 
level of responsibility, ability to meet deadlines, 
dependability, or integrity, it does not, in prac-
tice, actually predict an employee’s performance 
or likelihood to quit. Credit reports contain 
many inaccuracies and credit history can be 
contaminated by events that are sometimes out-
side a person’s control, such as a sudden med-
ical expense after an accident or the loss of a 
job during an economic downturn. The study 
found that there is no benefit from using credit 
history to predict job performance or turnover. 
(D) Despite the absence of data showing a 
correlation between job performance and credit- 
worthiness, employers continue to use credit 
checks as a proxy for assessing character and 
integrity. According to a 2012 Society for 
Human Resource Management survey, organi-
zations indicated that they used credit checks 
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