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     | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 08:57 am  In a recent thread, a couple of us noticed that Citibank stopped reporting credit limts to the CRA's. I presumed that this had a derogatory effect on FICO due to having a "0" or "UNKNOWN" credit limit. Even if your balance is only $10, you are still calculated as having 100% of your credit line maxed out. I finally got in touch with a supervisor at CB who told me the reason: CB doesn't want its competitors seeing how much credit they extend on their VISA and MC (obviously someone with a $10,000 limit might be attractive to other banks looking for new customers). Now here is my question: Wouldn't the stipulation in the FCRA about their obligation to report COMPLETE and ACCURATE information take precedence over CB's business desires??? What they are doing is niether complete nor accurate. Would this be a WILLFUL and INTENDED violation of the requirement to report completely and accurately??
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 04:42 pm I would think so. What do we do about it?
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 05:23 pm I would agree with you that pursuant to 623(a)(2)(B) that "[An information furnisher that] has furnished to a consumer reporting agency information that the person determines is not complete or accurate, shall promptly notify the consumer reporting agency of that determination and provide to the agency any corrections to that information, or any additional information, that is necessary to make the information provided by the person to the agency complete and accurate, and shall not thereafter furnish to the agency any of the information that remains not complete or accurate." There can be little doubt that a strict construction of the Fair Credit Reporting Act places them solidly in the wrong and you solidly in the right. The question now becomes what exactly to do about it? Here are my suggestions: 1. Take your statement from Citibank, photocopy it, highlight your credit limit and mail it to each of the credit reporting agencies saying, "I notice that you do not have my proper credit limits on this tradeline. Please update your files accordingly." or 2. Contact Citibank and tell them that they either start reporting your credit properly or you'll close the card. Probably they won't change anything and you'll close the card. or 3. Go to the press. Try getting either the Drudge Report or WorldNetDaily to take up the gauntlet for you to shower Citibank with bad publicity. WorldNetDaily has just recently finished a long series slamming Citibank for various of its policies so perhaps you'll be successful. or 4. Begin to document that you have been damaged in preparation for a lawsuit. If you call an attorney and say, "I want to sue" the first words out of his mouth will be "What are your damages?" You want to be as prepared as possible for that question to create the greatest chance that he'll take your case. I'd recommend first calling the Fair Isaac Credit Scores Question Line [I think the number's (800)777-2066] and get them to verbally say that your score will be lowered by that tradeline not showing your proper credit limit. Write down who you talked to and when and follow it up with a letter saying, "This is to confirm our conversation of 3/xx/2000 where you said that this tradeline not having my real credit limit lowers my score. Attached is a copy of my credit profile and I would appreciate your signing the bottom of this letter and returning it to me in the self-addressed, stamped envelope I have provided to acknowledge that the unreported credit limit on the Citibank tradeline does indeed reduce my score." If you can get that letter in your hands it should be enough to persuade an attorney to take the case.
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 05:48 pm Isn't it funny that a creditor can do such things but God forbid a consumer attempt it. It is then considered altering the facts. Well, once again, Citibank Lines the pockets of the CRA so it is quite allright to make such changes. A consumer requesting such a thing would never be allowed. So,.... We are to suffer because Citibank wants to throw off the competition. If others creditors begin to follow suit then Fair Issac will have to re-modulate (or calibrate :)> their scoring system eh?
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 06:29 pm I just got off the phone with citibank and got the same "we don't want our competitors to know......" answer. The only thing I got out of the conversation is the customer service address. It would appear that they are in violation of the FCRA but how can a lowly consumer call them on it legally?
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 08:01 pm Intersting comments from everyone. Sean, you sumed up the situation perfectly; and Kristy, you nailed the double standard - if a big bucks mega corp manipulates info, well, that is just peachy-keen. If Joe Consumer does it, well, then that is just deplorable. I have some more info since I started the thread. I called a Fair Isaac contact that I got (somehow) over a year ago. This is a very helpful and knowledgeable guy (I don't recall HOW I first got his phone number), and he told me that this is beginning to be a more common practice everyday. He also told me that given that CB is reporting it as "unknown" (in actuality, just leaving the data field blank or null) that it is not the same as if they were reporting $0. His contention is that when the algorhythms see the null field that they ignore the ratio calculations for that record---so if you have a high percentage of your credit line used, then it works to your advantage as it doesn't ding you for a percentage used that is too high. Conversely, he said if you have a very low balance then it could work out to your detriment.
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 08:07 pm Perhaps DrDavid or Voightkampf could weigh in on this: Sean mentions damages, but what if what I want is for them to do the right thing, and not money at all? If a judgement could be made that they are indeed willfully and intentionally violating the FCRA, couldn't the judgement enjoin them from continuing to do so? My presumption is that if an individual wanted to absorb the attorneys fees to pursue such a tack, then s/he could easily be looking at many tens of thousands of dollars for fees. If this is the case, then it would be yet another case of big corps burying someone with their wallets, while getting away with something that is blatantly wrong and unethical.
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| | Wednesday, March 15, 2000 - 08:47 pm Rather then personal damages under the rights of the FCRA, I would lobby and write to your Senator,Attorney General and the Credit bureaus directly. Allow them to make it right by explaining how creditors can manipulate the info but consumers cannot. The CRA lobby, so shall we. I have written to my Senator and the FTC several times and they always reply ASAP. The most important thing to remember here is that the CRA are a FOR profit company just as any other company and cannot set their own rules unless we as consumers allow it. So many people are afraid of the CRA and view them as a Government Agency.
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| | Thursday, March 16, 2000 - 03:35 am First of all I disagree that the best thing to do is to write your Senator or Congressman. There is already a law against what they do, which I have quoted above. Passing another law to make it illegal twice is pointless. If you can't get satisfaction from the first law what makes you think you'll get more satisfaction from the second? You would be far better off to go to the FTC (which Kristi mentioned) or the attorney general for your state to see if he can provide help. The most effective thing for you to do is to send a copy of your statement that has your credit limit on it. The only downside of this is that it will only benefit you and won't benefit the other thousands of customers that Citibank has.
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| | Thursday, March 16, 2000 - 07:33 am Sean: I agree, however, that is what I meant. I don't mean she should attempt to lobby for a new law but rather and I should have been clearer, lobby for the violtion of the current law. By writing to your Attorney General & the FTC, she will begin the needed actions. I also wrote to my Senator and he quickly shot a letter to the FTC which got even faster results.
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| | Thursday, March 16, 2000 - 08:33 am I will write to Mr. Bill's (CA Attorney General)office as well as the FTC. This seems to be SOOOOOOO black & white as a violation! If it is swept under the rug, then it simply means that NOBODY gives a sh*t if MegaCorp and the CRA's continue to screw the consumer. If I get any response, I'll update the forum.
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