The nation’s three major credit bureaus last week agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission a total of $2.5 million in civil penalties to settle alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
Equifax Credit Information Services Inc., Atlanta, and Trans Union LLC, Chicago, will each pay a penalty of $1 million while Experian Information Solutions, Orange, CA, will pay a $500,000 to resolve individual allegations that they failed to adequately staff and maintain toll-free telephone systems for consumers to discuss their credit reports.
Executives at Experian and Trans Union were not available at deadline.
Equifax said in a statement that it while it was pleased to have “resolved this matter cooperatively,” it believed that its “operations have been, and are, in full compliance with the 1997 amendments to the FCRA concerning accessibility to our personnel.”
Credit reporting agencies were required by those amendments to “establish a toll-free telephone number, at which personnel are accessible to consumers during normal business hours.”
The FTC said that while the companies did install a toll-free telephone system for consumers, callers “received a busy signal or message indicating that the consumer must call back because all representatives are busy [and] experienced an unreasonable hold time while waiting to speak to defendant’s personnel during normal business hours.”
The FTC also alleged that each of the three blocked or refused to answer certain incoming calls “based upon telephone number of origin, including, but not limited to area code” based on the belief that those calls should be handled by certain affiliates.
Under terms of the settlement agreement, the three companies must, on average, answer consumer calls within three and one-half minutes. In addition, 90% of those callers must be directly connected to a customer service representative without receiving a busy signal.
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