No law allows people to remove negative information from credit report | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·3 min read
1

The claim: Congress passed an act that allows people to remove negative items from their credit reports

A Nov. 2 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a clip of a man lip-syncing between blocks of text about the supposed benefits of a credit law.

"Congress passed the FCRA LAW that allows you to permanently remove anything hurting your credit," reads text above the man.

Text in the post offers "affordable letters" that it claims can remove items like student loans, hospital bills and evictions from credit reports.

The post garnered more than 70,000 likes in two weeks. Similar versions of the claim were shared on Instagram and Facebook.

More from the USA TODAY Fact-Check Team:

Our rating: False

The law the post references was enacted in 1970 and doesn't allow people to remove negative information from their credit reports. It only allows for the removal of inaccurate information or the removal of negative information after seven years.

Law doesn't allow removal of any negative information

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is not a new law; it was originally enacted in 1970 to ensure accuracy and protect the information collected by credit reporting agencies, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Congress has since made numerous amendments to the act.

None of these amendments allow people to remove accurate information from their credit reports, however.

Richard Franks, head of Lightbox at Intuit Credit Karma, told USA TODAY the act merely ensures consumers are given fair treatment when it comes to their credit.

"While consumers do not have the power to permanently remove anything hurting their credit, they do have the ability to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information on their credit report," Franks said in an email. "Another protection under the FCRA ensures that old negative information, like late payments or bankruptcy, aren't held against the consumer forever; credit agencies must remove most negative credit information after seven years, and must remove bankruptcies after 10 years."

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This information is reiterated on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau website. Accurate information that appears multiple times or information arising from identity theft may also be removed, according to the website.

Tia Elbaum, a spokesperson for the bureau, told USA TODAY in an email that one of the most common myths her organization hears about credit reports is that “(you) can pay someone to remove derogatory, but accurate and current info from (your) files."

The bureau states on its website that the public should be wary of "anyone who claims that they can remove information from your credit report that’s current, accurate and negative" as "it’s probably a credit repair scam."

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The Associated Press previously debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim about removing negative credit report info | Fact check