A co-worker just came to me and had heard on the news this weekend that there was a movement towrd no one being able to retain copies of credit reports due to high posibilities of fraud. She only caught part of the report, but that banks (and others) would no longer be able to retain copies of the report in any form in their files.

1) Has anyone else also heard this?? and have I just been behind a rock??
and,
2) I can't imagine consumer groups being OK with this as banks and others would be pulling credit reprots everytime someone wanted new or increased credit, which could be every 6 months! Imagine the inquiry list at the end of the report.

Comments????

Hi jnewton, nice to meet you behind this rock. - I haven't heard of this either and would ask where it was heard, at what level is this proposal and is it talk or is there serious work going on here???

I think it may be hype, but if anyone else has heard of a serious movement for this...

This was heard on a morning TV news program (she can't remember which one for sure)and the effective date would be June (assuming 2007) with 6 months to comply with the ruling.

As usual, those who must comply will be the last to know!

It sounds like an ambitious but partially informed newscaster made up what sounded like a good story but wasn't correct. True, under the FACT Act, there is a records destruction rule for the credit report and information derived from it. However, as Regulation V makes very clear, that is over-ridden by any record retention requirement. So, for credit applications subject to Regulation B (and all credit applications are) you have a 25 month retention requirement, no matter what FCRA and that reporter say.