Starting December 1, Loan Prospector will begin passing on to LP users
the FACT Act alerts received with credit infiles and merged credit reports.
FACT Act alerts for all three credit repositories will be included free
of charge on credit infiles obtained through Loan Prospector.
Some credit reporting companies (CRC) will add an additional FACT Act-related
fee to their merged credit report charges. The new fees will be add to
the merged credit report fee on the monthly Loan Prospector invoice. See
list of CRC fees.
Per the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction (FACT) Act, effective December
1, 2004, consumers have the option to place fraud alerts on their credit files
at the three national credit repositories – Equifax, Trans Union and Experian
in the event they determine their credit information may have been obtained
or used by any unauthorized person. Consumers may place the following alerts
on their credit files per the FACT Act:
Initial Alert – 90-day “temporary” alert message
when fraud/identity theft is suspected.
Extended Alert – 7-year alert message when a consumer can
provide substantial evidence that they are a victim of identity theft.
Active Duty Alert – 12-month alert to indicate a consumer
is on active military duty.
When an alert message appears on the credit report, a prospective lender that
obtains the report must verify the identity of the consumer prior to extending
credit. For more details on the FACT Act, including more information on these
alerts, go to: http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/alerts/facta.html.
In addition to the FACT Act alerts, the three national credit repositories
will also provide the following messages to ensure the accuracy of consumers'
credit information:
Address Discrepancy Message – This message will notify a credit
report requestor if there is a substantial discrepancy between the address
on inquiry input and the address on the credit report.
Inquiry Factor Message – This message will inform the requestor
of the credit report if the consumer’s credit score has been adversely
impacted by the number of inquires contained in the consumer's credit file.
You may see these additional messages passed through with credit infiles prior
to December 1.
