Fair Credit Reporting Reseller Accuracy Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The bill adds a reseller-specific provision to section 607 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Before sending consumer-report information to an end user or another reseller, a reseller must follow reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of information about the individual. At the same time, a reseller may not be held liable under the Act when it accurately communicates information obtained from another consumer reporting agency. The existing statutory definition of reseller governs.
Who Benefits and How
Consumer-report resellers gain an express liability shield for accurate transmission of another agency's information. Lenders and other authorized report users may benefit from clearer transmission standards. Consumers gain an explicit accuracy-procedure requirement, but that benefit is qualified by the liability limitation; faithfully repeating inaccurate source information is different from establishing that the source information is true.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Reseller compliance officers must maintain reasonable pre-transmission procedures. Consumers challenging an underlying source error may have less ability to recover from a reseller when the reseller accurately relayed it, even though other claims against the originating agency are not expressly removed. Originating consumer reporting agencies remain important to correcting source errors. The bill does not require every reseller to independently reinvestigate every source item before every transmission.
Key Provisions
- Requires reasonable accuracy procedures before a reseller transmits consumer-report information.
- Provides a liability shield when information from another consumer reporting agency is accurately communicated.
- Uses the existing Fair Credit Reporting Act definition of reseller.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Require accuracy procedures for consumer-report resellers while shielding them from liability for accurately relaying another reporting agency's information.
Key Policy Areas
Consumer Finance, Privacy
Primary Purpose
Require accuracy procedures for consumer-report resellers while shielding them from liability for accurately relaying another reporting agency's information.
Policy Domains
Fair Credit Reporting Reseller Accuracy Act
Identified Gains
- Consumer-report reseller compliance officers
- Lenders using consumer reports
- Consumers seeking accurate reports
Identified Costs
- Consumers challenging source errors
- Originating consumer reporting agencies
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
ReportedPlaced on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 689.
Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Financial Services. H. Rept. …
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the …
Additional sponsors: Mr. Meuser and Mrs. Wagner
Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by Voice Vote.
Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held
Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Introduced in House
Mr. Lawler (for himself and Mr. Gottheimer) introduced the following …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Consumers challenging source-report errors, Consumers seeking accurate credit reports
Positive-direction: Consumers seeking accurate credit reports
Negative-direction: Consumers challenging source-report errors
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "users"
- → Lenders and other end users
- "sources"
- → Originating consumer reporting agencies
- "consumers"
- → Consumers named in reports
- "resellers"
- → Consumer-report resellers
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology