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erbate and perpetuate an already precarious sit-
uation. 
(G) In a March 2013 Demos report titled 
‘‘Discredited: How Employment Credit Checks 
Keep Out Qualified Workers Out of a Job’’, one 
in four survey participants who were unem-
ployed said that a potential employer had re-
quested to check their credit report as part of 
a job application. Among job applicants with 
blemished credit histories in the survey, one in 
seven had been told that they were not being 
hired because of their credit history. 
(H) While job applicants must give prior 
approval for a prospective employer to pull their 
credit reports under the FCRA, this authoriza-
tion, as a practical matter, does not constitute 
an effective consumer protection because an 
employer may reject any job applicant who re-
fuses a credit check. 
(I) Some negative information on a report 
may stem from uncontrollable circumstances, or 
significant life events in a consumer’s life, such 
as a medical crisis or a divorce. Demos found 
that poor credit is associated with household 
unemployment, lack of health coverage, and 
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medical debt, which are factors that reflect eco-
nomic conditions in the country and personal 
misfortune that have little relationship with how 
well a job applicant would perform at work. 
(J) In October 2011, FICO noted that 
from 2008 to 2009 approximately 50 million 
people experienced a 20-point drop in their 
credit scores and about 21 million saw their 
scores decline by more than 50 points. While 
the Great Recession reduced many consumers’ 
credit scores due to foreclosures and other fi-
nancial hardships, the financial crisis had a 
particularly harsh impact on African Americans 
and Latinos, as racial and ethnic minorities and 
communities of color were frequently targeted 
by predatory mortgage lenders who steered bor-
rowers into high-cost subprime loans, even when 
these borrowers would have qualified for less 
costly prime credit. 
(K) A May 2006 Brookings Institution re-
port titled ‘‘Credit Scores, Reports, and Getting 
Ahead in America’’ found that counties with a 
relatively higher proportion of racial and ethnic 
minorities in the United States tended to have 
lower credit scores compared with counties that 
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had a lower concentration of communities of 
color. 
(L) Studies have consistently found that 
African American and Latino households tend, 
on average, to have lower credit scores than 
White households. The growing use of credit 
checks, therefore, may disproportionately screen 
otherwise qualified racial and ethnic minorities 
out of jobs, leading to discriminatory hiring 
practices, and further exacerbating the trend 
where unemployment for African American and 
Latino communities is elevated well above the 
rate of Whites. 
(M) A 2012 Demos survey found that 65 
percent of White respondents reported having 
good or excellent credit scores while over half of 
African American households reported only hav-
ing fair or bad credit. 
(12) DECEPTIVE AND MISLEADING MARKETING 
PRACTICES.— 
(A) The Consumer Bureau’s February 
2015 report titled ‘‘Consumer Voices on Credit 
Reports and Scores’’ found that some con-
sumers did not obtain a copy of their consumer 
report due to concerns about security or of 
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being trapped into purchasing unwanted prod-
ucts like an additional report or a credit moni-
toring service. 
(B) In January 2017, the Consumer Bu-
reau fined TransUnion and Equifax for decep-
tively marketing credit scores for purchase by 
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 webpages 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 
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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. 
(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 
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