AFSCME 3357-HOF'S BLOG

And the E-OSCAR Goes to . . .

If you are a consumer lawyer doing credit report cases - or if you are a consumer who wants his or her report accurate, you need to get familiar with the E-OSCAR system. E-OSCAR is the industry standard system for automated dispute verification. With the implementation of the FACT Act (Fair Accurate Credit Transactions), the same law that gives you the right to free annual credit reports, the credit reporting agencies are requiring information providers (creditors) to send the information to them electronically. This freezes out small creditors. More problematic, the standardized electronic system for sending disputes does not allow for the transmission of supporting information.

In other words, When you send 5 signatures to the credit reporting agency to show that the creditor is reporting a forged account, those signatures aren't being forwarded to the creditor. One can argue that failing to do so is a failure to to insure "maximum possible accuracy" in the credit file, but it isn't being done none-the-less.

As a practical matter, the expansion of the automated dispute process makes it even more important to send your disputes directly to the creditor and the credit reporting agency. My preferred practice is to send it to the creditor first, followed by a letter to the credit reporting agency a couple weeks later. I send both certified mail, or sometimes fax -- any method where I can prove the they received the message.

GuardMyCreditFile: FACT, E-OSCAR and Inaccurate Credit Reports