Whether we like it or not, we live in an age where much of what goes on in our daily lives is monitored, collected and sold to interested parties. That includes information from our driving records, our medical history, our Internet traffic and, most importantly, our credit reports. According to a story that aired Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes, a new government study being released today indicates as many as 40 million Americans have a mistake on their credit reports. Twenty million have significant mistakes. A mistake on your credit report can cost you money. It can increase the interest you pay on loans, and prevent you from getting a mortgage or buying a car, landing a job or getting a security clearance. 60 Minutes’ investigation of the credit reporting industry shows that those mistakes can be nearly impossible to get removed from your record. Consumer credit reporting is a $4 billion a year industry dominated by three large companies: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. They keep files on 200 million Americans and traffic in our financial reputations. They make their money gathering information from people we do business with and selling it to banks, merchants, insurance companies, and employers; and they use it to make judgments on our creditworthiness and reliability. But now the reliability of the industry is being questioned in the eight-year Federal Trade Commission study being released today. You can check out the complete video segment here; or read the transcript here.
Today’s poll question: How often do you check your credit reports for errors?
