Suluki v. Credit One Bank, NA
The Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission filed an amicus brief explaining the scope of a furnisher’s duties under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to respond to disputes from a consumer. The brief explains that when a consumer disputes the accuracy of information in their credit report, the FCRA requires the furnisher (the entity that provided the disputed information to the consumer reporting agency) to conduct an investigation to determine whether the disputed information is accurate. If the evidence available to the furnisher is inconclusive—i.e., if its investigation is unable to determine whether the disputed information is accurate or not—then the FCRA does not allow a furnisher to report back to the consumer reporting agency that its investigation verified the accuracy of that information. Rather, the furnisher is required to report that its investigation concluded that the disputed information could not be verified and to cease reporting that information. Accordingly, the brief argues that even if no reasonable investigation could have conclusively determined that the information disputed by the consumer is false, it still may be the case that the furnisher was unable to verify the information and that the consumer was harmed by its decision to continue reporting unverifiable information.