Fair Credit Report Act (FCRA) Guide by Section

Section 601 – The popular name of the law is the “Fair Credit Reporting Act” or the FCRA for short

Section 602 – Why Congress found a need for the law, i.e. a credit reporting system that is fair and accurate to the consumer, and protects the privacy and specifies the permitted uses of consumer information 

Section 603 – Important definitions of key terms used in the Act. For example, a person is defined as an individual or an organization, but a consumer is defined only as a natural person. The law also defines what is a consumer report, a consumer reporting agency, consumer reports for employment purposes, and adverse actions 

Section 604 – This section is about the situations in which consumer reporting agencies may provide a consumer report. These situations are also called the “Permissible Purposes” to obtain a report. The section also lists some purposes where a consumer report may not obtain a report, e.g. marketing, curiosity, law enforcement 

Section 605 – Controls the time limit of when consumer information can be reported. In general, that is 7 years for adverse data other than bankruptcy which can be up to 10 years. This section also controls when the time period limit starts running 

Section 605A – About Identity Theft including filing initial fraud alerts, extended alerts, and active duty alerts 

Section 605B – In certain situations, the Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA’s) must block information as a result of Identity Theft 

Section 606 – One of the main point of this section on investigating consumer reports, like employment reports, is that there are required disclosures that must be made to consumers 

Section 607 – Compliance section, which means that CRA’s must maintain reasonable procedures to avoid violating Section 604 and 605 of the Act, such as providing obsolete information or furnishing reports for non permitted purposes 

Section 608 – When a government agency can see your report and what they can see 

Section 609 – What must be disclosed to consumers upon request 

Section 610 – To obtain your own report, consumers must provide identification, and disclosures must generally be in writing 

Section 611 – Procedures when the consumer disputes the accuracy or completeness of an item in their file 

Section 612 – Not all credit reports are free, some may incur a fee 

Section 613 – CRA’s must be careful about furnishing public records for employment reports 

Section 614 – Talks about investigative consumer reports and using information from an old report 

Section 615 – Users and others who obtain consumer reports have important responsibilities 

Section 616 – Dollar liability for those who willfully violate the Act 

Section 617 – Liability for those who are negligent in failing to comply with the Act 

Section 618 – Bring actions in US district courts within a specified time frame 

Section 619 – Fines and potential imprisonment for obtaining information under false pretenses 

Section 620 – Fines and potential imprisonment for the officers and employees of the CRA 

Section 621 – The Federal Trade Commission is the main enforcer of the Act 

Section 622 – Requirements regarding the reporting of overdue child support 

Section 623 – Companies that report your credit information to have important responsibilities 

Section 624 – Govern’s affiliates who may have access to the report for marketing etc. 

Section 625 – Does not exempt state laws except to extent state law is inconsistent with this law

Section 626 – The FBI has special rights to see your file 

Section 627 – Counterterrorism has special rights to see your file 

Section 628 – Properly dispose of consumer information to protect the confidentiality of the information 

Section 629 – Prevents consumer reporting agencies from circumventing the law