KATU.com
July 29, 2004

PORTLAND, ORE. - Credit is something most people need, but when credit bureaus make mistakes, consumers can end up paying the price.

Consumer advocates say there are so many errors that it is a good idea to check your credit report before it is too late.

Jeremy Wright says he cannot get hold of a real person on the phone to fix a mistake on his credit report, so he has written all three major credit bureaus.

Wright is trying to prove that he does not owe a gas bill from 11 years ago or that he was late on a house payment.

"I paid it, sent them a receipt and it's still on there showing it's unpaid," he told KATU News.

The errors are costing Wright higher interest rates on refinancing his home.

If you think Wright is one of just a handful out there with this sort of problem, think again - a new survey shows 79 percent of credit reports contain mistakes.

More than half of those contain errors about who you are, where you live or how your name is spelled and a quarter of all reports have serious mistakes that can lead to denial of credit.

"The problem is the credit bureaus are way too loosey goosey about their standards for disclosing credit reports," says Evan Hendricks, who has written a book on credit bureaus.

Hendricks says the nation's three credit companies need to clean up their acts.

"We're still seeing more and more of these cases where people have obvious errors where any human being says this has got to come off a credit report and it's still not coming off the credit report," he says.

Judy Thomas of Klamath Falls sued Trans Union for credit blunders and received the highest judgement ever levied against a credit bureau - $1 million.

"It's unbelievable how many people this could affect," she told KATU News in 2002.

Starting this December, anyone with credit can get a free credit report each year, which is a good way to uncover credit bureau blunders that could end up costing you money.

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