Individual Supporters Join 20+ Leading Consumer and Financial Orgs in Urging Congress to Fix Credit Repair Organization Act (CROA)
Washington, DC – September 21, 2016 – The Coalition to Improve Credit Education today announced that more than 10,000 individuals have added their names in support of the Coalition’s efforts to fix the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), so consumers can get prompt personalized credit education services. Those thousands of individual supporters join the more than 20 influential community development, minority leadership, and financial literacy organizations backing the Coalition.
The Coalition is currently working with Congress to change a provision in CROA to eliminate a three-day waiting period that makes it difficult and inconvenient for consumers to receive personalized credit education information and services from the nationwide credit bureaus.
“If you don’t understand your credit, you can’t improve it, and existing law prevents millions of Americans from receiving the timely personalized credit education services they want and need,” said Bill Cheeks, executive director of the Coalition. “Congress should fix the law through a simple and common-sense solution that allows nationwide credit bureaus to provide valuable credit education services without waiting three full business days to respond to consumer requests.”
In addition to the 10,000 individual supporters of the Coalition’s efforts, organizational members include Center for Financial Services Innovation; CARE (Credit Abuse Resistance Education); Credit Builders Alliance; Economic Empowerment Initiative; HomeFree-USA; National Bankers Association; National Baptist Convention of America Internationa.; National Black Caucus of State Legislators; National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators; Operation HOPE; Policy and Economic Research Council (PERC); Rainbow PUSH; Single Parent Alliance and Resource Center; Society for Financial Education and Professional Development; Southern Christian Leadership Conference; U.S. Black Chamber.; and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. A full list of members can be found at https://www.mycreditlife.org/about-the-coalition/.
The Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) was passed in 1996 to address the problem of fraudulent solicitations and consumer scams around credit repair. While it was never intended to cover CRAs, the courts have interpreted it in a way that effectively prevents the three nationwide credit bureaus from providing valuable credit education and improvement tools. The Coalition is encouraging Congress to reassert the original intent of CROA in light of the court’s ruling by exempting the nationwide, heavily supervised credit bureaus from the onerous CROA notification and delay requirements.
A study released last year by PERC, a leading research and advocacy organization on credit education and financial inclusion issues, found only six percent of consumers actually complete the registration process for credit education services after being forced to sit through the mandatory disclosure and wait three business days for the support they need.
About the Coalition to Improve Credit Education
The Coalition to Improve Credit Education (CICE) represents consumers and organizations that want to make it easier for people and small businesses to get the tools and information they need to understand and improve their credit reports and scores. More information about the Coalition and its members can be found at MyCreditLife.org.
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