The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not planning to make any changes to the guidance it issued earlier this year telling furnishers that as long as they are making “good faith efforts” to investigate disputes as quickly as possible that they can take longer than the legally required 30 days to do so, according to a letter written by CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger in response to a request from a number of consumer groups asking the agency to reconsider its decision and obtained by Law360.
The guidance issued by the CFPB back in April when the coronavirus pandemic had begun to wreak havoc across the country has caused a stir among state attorneys general and consumer advocacy groups who claim the CFPB is weakening consumer protections at a time when they need to be strengthened. The CFPB issued the guidance because so many furnishers had employees working remotely and were dealing with never-before-seen circumstances in trying to maintain their operations in the middle of a global pandemic.
“I want to make clear that all companies continue to remain responsible for FCRA compliance with dispute resolutions in a timely fashion,” Kraninger wrote in the letter. “However, during the extraordinary times in which we find ourselves, the Bureau does not intend to cite in an examination or bring an enforcement action against firms who exceed the deadlines to investigate such disputes – but only as long as efforts are made in good faith to do so as quickly as possible.”
Along with the guidance it has issued, the CFPB released a series of Frequently Asked Questions to help companies understand the guidance, including clarifying its stance on the investigation window.
State AGs have come out and publicly announced that they will monitor furnishers to ensure that they do not improperly report negative credit information, and will monitor the CRAs to ensure that they investigate disputes arising from improper reporting by furnishers in a timely manner. “We expect the CRAs to comply with all provisions of the FCRA, state law, and the requirements of agreements that the CRAs entered into with our offices, CRAs’ obligations to conduct meaningful and timely investigations of consumer disputes of credit information,” they said in their letter
