Protecting Your Credit Score Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5332, the Protecting Your Credit Score Act. I support this bill because, like so many Americans, I personally know the frustration of dealing with erroneous marks on your credit report and thought I would share a recent story.

About a month ago, I got a letter from a bank where I don't have an account, Bank of America. They were thanking me for something that I didn't recognize. So, I did what all good Americans do: I threw it in the recycle bin and moved on with my day.

The next day, I got a similar letter from Navy Federal Credit Union, where I also do not have an account. This one had a summary of my credit score and was shortly followed with another note saying that my account was overdrawn by $3,250.

I am going to be honest. The only reason that the Navy Federal Credit Union letters got my attention and didn't end up in the recycling bin is because they were addressed to Lieutenant Commander Sean Casten. I have been called a lot of things in this job, but that is a rank that I have never earned.

A few phone calls and a similar overdraft notification from Bank of America later, and I had fraud alerts placed on both accounts.

On the advice of the banks, I called TransUnion to ensure this wouldn't show up on my credit report. The agent was helpful. At the end of the call, she said: ``Is there anything else I should know?''

And I just couldn't resist telling her: ``Only that I am a member of the House Financial Services Committee with oversight of you, and I appreciate how helpful you have been.''

Now, I tell that story because I was able to correct this. But I can imagine a ton of other scenarios where I don't check the recycling, where I am not alleged to be a commissioned naval officer, where I hadn't been in enough committee hearings on this subject to recognize fraud early on. And in all those scenarios, this story has a much less happy ending.

But those incidents happen every day to an awful lot of Americans. We know 21 percent of consumers had verified errors in their credit reports. Thirteen percent had errors that affected their credit scores. Five percent had errors serious enough to cause them to be denied or pay more for credit. But those are only the accounts we know about.

Many don't know where to turn or have the resources or the time to correct them. Fraudulent or accidental marks on a credit report can have a life-altering consequence, so it is important that those reports are correct.

But credit scores and reports are a critical gatekeeper for Americans' financial well-being and access to the most basic building block of the American Dream.

It is determinative in setting premiums for auto and homeowner's insurance. It informs landlords on which renters they want to rent their apartments to. Your score determines if you must make a bigger deposit to get your utilities.

That is why this bill is so important. It creates an online consumer portal where consumers will have free and unlimited access to their consumer reports and credit scores.

Allowing consumers the ability to initiate disputes about credit report accuracy--rather than all the rigmarole I had to go through--and to place or remove a security freeze, is a critical tool that allows Americans the control and the ability to remedy those errors.

It is 2020. It is long past time to modernize the way that consumers address errors on their credit scores.

I thank Representative Gottheimer for introducing this bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

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