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Do You Know Your Credit Rights?
Every consumer has rights under various laws instituted by the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC). The FTC established these laws to protect consumers from those
who would take advantage of them. The laws govern not only the rights of the
consumer, but the actions of those who interact with the consumer in areas of
finance, credit, and collections.
We encourage everyone to be not only aware that these laws exist, but to make
themselves familiar with the laws.
Here are links to these consumer protection laws:
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA)
The Fair Credit Reporting Act
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
In essence, the FTC Acts (laws) establish the rules of the game and are in place
to protect both parties (from each other). All games have rules. Lenders,
creditors, collection agencies, and the credit bureaus must abide by these
rules. If they do not follow these rules they can be held accountable.
DO NOT depend on these lenders, creditors, collection agencies, or credit
bureaus to always adhere to the rules or to even know all the rules. Lenders,
creditors, collection agencies, and credit bureaus are notorious for violating
these rules and have been sued and convicted for many different types of
violations. Some violations were flagrant and others were not. There are three
points to be made here:
Violations are violations regardless.
You won't be aware of any violation unless you know the rules and you can
stop their actions if you do.
In most cases of violation you will have to seek legal action to win.
Lenders, creditors, collection agencies, and the credit bureaus are very aware
that the average consumer is totally unaware of what the laws are…and many of
the parties count on this so they can get away with violations without
consequence. They know that most consumers will not seek legal action against
them even when confronted with evidence of violation. Those who have sought
legal action have had a very high percentage of victory and have also won damages
because every violation carries with it a monetary damages award up to $1000.00
per violation.
We suggest you learn the rules of the game. It helps to keep everything on an
even playing field and makes you a better gamesman. Generally, he who knows the
rules wins.
And to the victor go the spoils. |
