IB 
Union Calendar No. 288 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3642 
[Report No. 116–363] 
To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to fix the consumer report dispute 
process, to ban misleading and unfair consumer reporting practices, 
and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 9, 2019 
Ms. ADAMS introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 
on Financial Services 
DECEMBER 23, 2019 
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed 
[Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic] 
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on July 9, 2019] 
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A BILL 
To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to fix the consumer 
report dispute process, to ban misleading and unfair 
consumer reporting practices, and for other purposes. 
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Im-
proving Credit Reporting for All Consumers Act’’. 
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Findings. 
Sec. 3. Effective date. 
Sec. 4. Consumer Bureau rulemaking. 
TITLE I—IMPROVEMENTS TO THE DISPUTE PROCESS 
Sec. 101. Dispute procedures and disclosures relating to reinvestigations. 
Sec. 102. Consumer awareness of dispute rights. 
Sec. 103. Maintenance of records by furnishers. 
Sec. 104. Duties of furnishers relating to dispute procedures, notices, and disclo-
sures. 
Sec. 105. Right to appeal disputes relating to reinvestigations and investigations. 
Sec. 106. Revised consumer reports. 
Sec. 107. Indication of dispute by consumers and use of disputed information. 
Sec. 108. Accuracy and completeness report duties for consumer reporting agen-
cies and furnishers. 
Sec. 109. Inclusion of public record data sources in consumer reports. 
Sec. 110. Injunctive relief for victims. 
TITLE II—PROHIBITION ON MISLEADING AND UNFAIR CONSUMER 
REPORTING PRACTICES 
Sec. 201. Prohibition on automatic renewals for promotional consumer reporting 
and credit scoring products and services. 
Sec. 202. Prohibition on misleading and deceptive marketing related to the provi-
sion of consumer reporting and credit scoring products and serv-
ices. 
Sec. 203. Prohibiton on excessive direct-to-consumer sales. 
Sec. 204. Fair access to consumer reporting and credit scoring disclosures for 
nonnative English speakers and the visually and hearing im-
paired. 
Sec. 205. Comparison shopping for loans without harm to credit standing. 
Sec. 206. Nationwide consumer reporting agencies registry. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) GENERAL FINDINGS.— 
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(A) Consumer reporting agencies (‘‘CRAs’’) 
are companies that collect, compile, and provide 
information about consumers in the form of con-
sumer reports for certain permissible statutory 
purposes under the Fair Credit Reporting Act 
(15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.) (‘‘FCRA’’). The three 
largest CRAs in this country are Equifax, 
TransUnion, and Experian. These CRAs are re-
ferred to as nationwide CRAs and the reports 
that they prepare are commonly referred to as 
credit reports. Furnishers, such as creditors, 
lenders, and debt collection agencies, voluntarily 
submit information to CRAs about their ac-
counts such as the total amount for each loan or 
credit limit for each credit card and the con-
sumer’s payment history on these products. Re-
ports also include identifying information about 
a consumer, such as their birthdate, previous 
mailing addresses, and current and previous em-
ployers. 
(B) In a December 2012 paper, ‘‘Key Di-
mensions and Processes in the U.S. Credit Re-
porting System: A review for how the nation’s 
largest credit bureaus manage consumer data’’, 
the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection 
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(‘‘Consumer Bureau’’) noted that the three na-
tionwide CRAs maintain credit files on approxi-
mately 200 million adults and receive informa-
tion from about 10,000 furnishers. On a monthly 
basis, these furnishers provide information on 
over 1.3 billion consumer credit accounts or other 
trade lines. 
(C) The 10 largest institutions furnishing 
credit information to each of the nationwide 
CRAs account for more than half of all accounts 
reflected in consumers’ credit files. 
(D) Consumer reports play an increasingly 
important role in the lives of American con-
sumers. Most creditors, for example, review these 
reports to make decisions about whether to ex-
tend credit to consumers and what terms and 
conditions to offer them. As such, information 
contained in these reports affects whether a per-
son is able to get a private education loan to pay 
for college costs, to secure a mortgage loan to buy 
a home, or to obtain a credit card, as well as the 
terms and conditions under which consumer 
credit products or services are offered to them. 
(E) Credit reports are also increasingly 
used for many noncredit decisions, including by 
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landlords to determine whether to rent an apart-
ment to a prospective tenant and by employers 
to decide whether to hire potential job applicants 
or to offer a promotion to existing employees. 
(F) CRAs have a statutory obligation to 
verify independently the accuracy and complete-
ness of information included on the reports that 
they provide. 
(G) The nationwide CRAs have failed to es-
tablish and follow reasonable procedures, as re-
quired by existing law, to establish the max-
imum level of accuracy of information contained 
on consumer reports. Given the repeated failures 
of these CRAs to comply with accuracy require-
ments on their own, legislation is intended to 
provide them with detailed guidance improving 
the accuracy and completeness of information 
contained in consumer reports, including proce-
dures, policies, and practices that these CRAs 
should already be following to ensure full compli-
ance with their existing obligations. 
(H) The presence of inaccurate or incom-
plete information on these reports can result in 
substantial financial and emotional harm to 
consumers. Credit reporting errors can lead to 
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the loss of a new employment opportunity or a 
denial of a promotion in an existing job, stop 
someone from being able to access credit on fa-
vorable terms, prevent a person from obtaining 
rental housing, or even trigger mental distress. 
(I) Current industry practices impose an 
unfair burden of proof on consumers trying to 
fix errors on their reports. 
(J) Consumer reports containing inaccurate 
or incomplete credit information also undermine 
the ability of creditors and lenders to effectively 
and accurately underwrite and price credit. 
(K) Recognizing that credit reporting affects 
the lives of almost all consumers in this country 
and that the consequences of errors on a con-
sumer report can be catastrophic for a consumer, 
the Consumer Bureau began accepting consumer 
complaints about credit reporting in October 
2012. 
(L) As of February 2017, the Consumer Bu-
reau has handled approximately 185,717 credit 
reporting complaints, making credit reporting 
consistently the third most-complained-about 
subject matter on which the Consumer Bureau 
accepts consumer complaints. 
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(M) In the ‘‘Monthly Complaint Report Vol-
ume 20’’, released in February 2017, the Con-
sumer Bureau noted that 76 percent of credit re-
porting complaints involved incorrect informa-
tion on reports, with consumers frequently ex-
pressing their frustrations about the burdensome 
and time-consuming process to disputing items. 
(N) Other common types of credit reporting 
complaints submitted to the Consumer Bureau 
related to the improper use of a report, trouble 
obtaining a report or credit score, CRAs’ inves-
tigations, and credit monitoring or identity pro-
tection. 
(O) In the summer 2015 ‘‘Supervisory 
Highlights’’, the Consumer Bureau noted that 
one or more of the largest CRAs failed to ade-
quately oversee furnishers to ensure that they 
were adhering to the CRA’s vetting policies and 
to establish proper procedures to verify public 
record information. 
(P) According to the fall 2016 ‘‘Supervisory 
Highlights’’, Consumer Bureau examiners deter-
mined that one or more debt collectors never in-
vestigated indirect disputes that lacked detail or 
were not accompanied by attachments with rel-
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evant information from the consumer. Exam-
iners also found that notifications sent to con-
sumers about disputes considered frivolous failed 
to identify for the consumers the type of material 
that they could provide in order for the debt col-
lector to complete the investigation of the dis-
puted item. 
(Q) A February 2014 Consumer Bureau re-
port titled ‘‘Credit Reporting Complaint Snap-
shot’’ found that consumers are confused about 
the extent to which the nationwide CRAs are re-
quired to provide them with validation and doc-
umentation of a debt that appears on their credit 
report. 
(R) As evidence that the current system 
lacks sufficient market incentives for CRAs to de-
velop more robust procedures to increase the ac-
curacy and completeness of information on credit 
reports, litigation discovery documented by the 
National Consumer Law Center (‘‘NCLC’’), as 
part of a January 2009 report titled, ‘‘Auto-
mated Injustice: How a Mechanized Dispute Sys-
tem Frustrates Consumers Seeking to Fix Errors 
in Their Credit Reports’’, showed that at least 
two of the three largest CRAs use quota systems 
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to force employees to process disputes hastily and 
without the opportunity for conducting meaning-
ful investigations. At least one nationwide CRA 
only allowed dispute resolution staff five minutes 
to handle a consumer’s call. Furthermore, these 
CRAs were found to have awarded bonuses for 
meeting quotas and punished those who didn’t 
meet production numbers with probation. 
(S) Unlike most other business relation-
ships, where consumers can register their satis-
faction or unhappiness with a particular credit 
product or service simply by taking their busi-
ness elsewhere, consumers have no say in whether 
their information is included in the CRAs data-
bases and limited legal remedies to hold the 
CRAs accountable for inaccuracies or poor serv-
ice. 
(T) Accordingly, despite the existing statu-
tory mandate for CRAs to follow reasonable pro-
cedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy 
of the information whenever they prepare con-
sumer reports, numerous studies, the high volume 
of consumer complaints submitted to the Con-
sumer Bureau about incorrect information on 
consumer reports, and supervisory activities by 
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‘‘(II) a statement identifying the 
specific information from the con-
sumer’s file that was deleted or modi-
fied because such information was de-
termined to be inaccurate, incomplete, 
or unverifiable by the consumer report-
ing agency; 
‘‘(III) a statement that the con-
sumer has the right, free of charge, to 
obtain an additional consumer report 
and credit score or educational credit 
score (if applicable) within the 12- 
month period following the date of the 
conclusion of the reinvestigation, re-
gardless of whether the consumer ob-
tained or will obtain a free annual 
consumer report and credit score or 
educational score (if applicable) under 
section 612; and 
‘‘(IV) a statement that the con-
sumer has the right, free of charge, to 
request under subsection (d) that the 
consumer reporting agency furnish no-
tifications of the consumer’s revised re-
port; 
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