Fair Credit Reporting Act in Georgia 

What is the Fair Credit Reporting Act in Georgia?

The Georgia Fair Credit Reporting Act is a law that is an add-on to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA") which requires creditors, also known as furnishers, and the crediting reporting agencies or CRAs maintain the accuracy of consumer credit reports and files. Credit errors include deceased on Equifax and mixed on Equifax.

This article is a continuation of our 50-state survey on the Fair Credit Reporting Act. We will compare and contrast you're right on issues regarding your credit report and when an employer can review your credit report before and during employment. This article will also discuss all of your rights when it comes to your credit report.

Why is this Important?

The reason why it is important to address errors on your credit report, is that many times errors and adversely or negatively impact your credit score.

Your credit score is what most businesses use to make the determination to provide you credit and what interest rate. Therefore, when you have negative errors on your credit report, you greatly increase the chance of being denied a loan or having an extremely high interest rate.

Each state has the ability to make its own laws. The federal government, of course, has its own right to make its own laws.

If a federal law and a state law contradict each other, the federal law will almost always apply. This is called preemption.

However, a state can add additional laws to increase the rights of its citizens as long as it does not contradict the federal law.

If the CRAs or the creditors fail to follow the FCRA and state laws, then you can sue them for damages in court. In fact, the state of Georgia also has added some provisions of its own to the credit reporting system.

However, the additional laws do very little above the rights you already had in Georgia under the FCRA.

Federal rights plus your Georgia FCRA rights are a powerful source of protection to get your credit problems resolved when used correctly.

If they credit report is actually wrong, then you can make these consumer laws work in your favor and file a lawsuit to correct the inaccuracies. 

Common FCRA Errors to Correct in Georgia

• Information that is too old to be on your report (generally 7 years)
• Information that is just wrong and inaccurate
• Information that is not yours such as identity fraud
• Information that is mixed or merged with another person's credit files.

Damages under the Georgia Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Georgia law does not add any additional penalties for violating this law unlike other states. But, under the federal law, you are entitled to emotional distress damages, economic damages, costs, and attorney fees.

Case values vary per case. Some are valued at a few thousand of dollars and some at over one million. It simply depends. We can help you determine your own cases value by competing the form.

Do You Have a Claim under the Federal or Georgia Fair Credit Reporting Act?

Contact the law office of Joseph P. McClelland to see if we can help you right now.

Note: Georgia allows all residents to get two free credit reports from www.annualcredit.com.

Serving Atlanta, Macon, Savannah, Columbus, Albany, Rome, Stone Mountain, Lithonia, Dunwoody, Buckhead, Decatur and more. We represent clients across the state of Georgia using the Georgia Fair Credit Reporting Act.