The United States Senate Special Committee on Aging is concerned with the long-term economic security of America's seniors. As such, I am exploring the uses of specialty consumer reports and examining the practices of specialty consumer reporting agencies. I seek your cooperation with this inquiry so the Committee may better serve seniors and ensure that the use and consideration of these reports are consistent and just, and that seniors are not being denied valuable services and benefits based on inaccurate information.
Many consumers are unaware that specialty consumer reports are used in decision-making processes regarding employment, housing, or government benefits until an adverse action is taken against them. By the time a consumer learns of these reports, requests a copy, and disputes any erroneous information, the opportunities they seek are often expired and some can find their lives in disrepair. It is the Committee's concern that similar to the big three credit agencies, the consumer reporting agencies also fall victim to incorrect data that is in turn being used to make impactful decisions.
As part of the Committee's inquiry, I am writing to request documentation about the processes for gathering, disputing, and fixing a consumer's report. The jurisdiction of the Special Committee on Aging is set forth in Section 104 of S. Res. 4, agreed to February 4, 1977. We request that the following documents and information be provided to the Committee by June 2, 2016:
Do you provide a free annual consumer report to consumers? If no, why not? If so, please describe your policy and procedures for providing a streamlined process for consumers to request their free annual consumer report. Please also describe the ways in which consumers learn of this policy.
Please describe the specific circumstances in which consumers may receive a free consumer report from your company, apart from the report available once every 12 months upon request.
How does your company receive and process requests regarding copies of consumers' reports? Please provide any data on how quickly the requests are processed, including any internal limit your company maintains on processing time, and describe the staff you maintain to handle consumer requests.
What is your company's procedure for allowing consumers to dispute inaccurate information included on their report? Please describe your procedures for investigating and correcting inaccurate or outdated information, including any internal timeline you maintain for investigating inaccuracies and reporting results to consumers. Please provide any analytical data on the dispute resolution process.
Please describe your procedure for updating reports with correct information upon notification from reporting companies.
Have any consumers filed a case against you in a court of law? If so, please provide the case name, docket number, and jurisdiction for the litigation.
Have you been the focus of any enforcement actions, including warning letters, by any local, state, or federal agencies?
Please provide the name and address of any parent company, subsidiary, and affiliated companies.
Do you have any contracts or agreements with any federal, state or local government entities to provide reports? If so, please list the entities with which you have contracted and the type of service rendered for each.
What federal, state or local government entity has regulatory authority over your company? Have you had any interactions with any of these entities? If so, please explain.
Do you conduct audits on your data or employ a third party to do so? If so, please provide results of audits for the past five years, including but not limited to your error rate. If not, please explain how you control the quality of your data.
Please explain your procedures for handling personally identifiable information and protected health information and your protocol for protecting against identity theft.
How do you calculate a consumer's report or reporting score? Is there a specific formula or documents used to substantiate the score that is reported? Is there a specific time frame used? Please explain the methods used to collect the information and generate your reports.
How do you distinguish between fraud, suspected fraud, and account abuse? How do these distinctions impact a consumer's score?
Please describe your procedures for providing consumers the opportunity to place a "security freeze" on their credit reporting files, including the charge, if any, for this service.