Data Furnisher Requirements
The data furnisher requirements are established by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)’s Furnisher Rule. The FCRA Furnisher Rule includes legal obligations of the data furnisher, including:
- Data furnishers must provide information that is accurate and complete.
- Data furnishers must investigate customer disputes about the accuracy of the information they provide.
Data furnishers, as stated by the FCRA, must ensure the accuracy of the furnished information. Furnished or provided information must not be reported by data furnishers if they know or believe that it is inaccurate. Inaccurate information could be reported by the customer if an address was provided by data furnishers. Data furnishers must not provide information if they are informed by the customer about the inaccurate information. Inaccurate information must have a reasonable cause or specific knowledge for data furnishers to believe that the information is inaccurate.
Inaccurate information, as stated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), can be disputed by the customer in two ways:
- The customer can submit a dispute to a consumer reporting agency.
- The customer can submit a dispute directly to data furnishers.
Data furnishers will be notified by a consumer reporting agency regarding the information dispute. The information dispute must be addressed by data furnishers by:
- Investigating the dispute and reviewing all relevant information given by the consumer reporting agency about the dispute
- Reporting their findings to the consumer reporting agency
- Providing corrected information to every consumer reporting agency that received the information if their investigation shows that the information is incomplete or inaccurate
- Changing the information, deleting it, or blocking its reporting permanently if the information turns out to be inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable
These steps must be followed and completed within the same time allowed under the FCRA for the dispute to be resolved by the consumer reporting agency. The consumer reporting agency has 30 days to resolve after getting the dispute from the customer. The customer can provide additional relevant information, which gives 15 days more to the consumer reporting agency. The consumer reporting agency must give the additional relevant information provided by the customer to the data furnishers. The data furnishers must investigate and respond to it within the allowable time, or else the consumer reporting agency must remove the disputed information from its files.