According to the FCRA, an employer must provide an applicant with a copy of a consumer report when the applicant is denied employment due to information recieved from a credit reporting agency. Unlike the denial of a loan, proving the applicant with a number to call to obtain the report is not sufficient. We have been providing copies of credit reports, but a recent monitoring of our HR department has revealed that we also may turndown an applicant for derrogatory information recieved from Chex Systems. That information is recieved in oral form from Chex. We do not recieve anything in writing that we can give to the applicant. My HR department has told me that they have contactd ChexSystems and they cannot provide us with a written copy of the report. All Chex has in hard copy format is information from the insitution that reported the initial problem. Because this information includes an account number, it cannot be shared with us.
Therefore, is it OK for us to give the applicant the toll-free number for Chex to obtain the derrogatory information we used to turn them down,or is there still something we must provide?

Without a written report being produced, the best thing that can be done is to provide the disclosure and contact information available.

This is an interesting point because the FCRA is clear that a written copy is to be provided.

Short of the CRA industry providing written reports just for this, you may have to develop a form that denotes the information you provided and that was received, on which you based your decision.

Back in the olden days we used to call the CRA and they would read the report to us while we completed a form, hi, lo, current, X-30, X-60, etc. Then we eventually had our own printers and a telephone coupler to put the handset on as the modem connected. Maybe those days are not over.

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Andy Zavoina
Opinions stated are not necessarily that of my employer.