This article from the AP opens with this statement:
One in four credit reports has errors serious enough to disqualify consumers from buying a home, opening a bank account or getting a job, a consumer group says.
Okay, normally the phrase "a consumer group says" would lead me to totally discount everything that came before. "Consumer groups" are not high on my love list. I love consumers, mind you, but "consumer groups" are usually anticapitalist political machines; they don't care about "consumers," they care about politics.
However, I happen to believe that credit reports are rife with errors; I see them all the time. Since that statement jibes with my personal and professional experience, I decided to look into it further.
The "consumer group" in question is U.S. PIRG, that is "Public Interest Research Group." Okay. That changes things a bit. I think U.S. PIRG is as authoritarian left-wing as one can get, but they're not really a "consumer" group, they're a "public interest" group. That means they're allowed to be political. They're not pretending to be protecting consumers, they're protecting the public interest. Two very different things. The AP got it wrong when they said "a consumer group says."
Let me detour for a second: I don't care what anyone's politics are. I don't say "left-wing" becuase I'm right-wing. "Liberal vs. Conservative" is not where the battleground is for me. The only meaningful political line is "Authoritarian vs. Libertarian." My only point about consumer groups is that they lie. The lie about being consumer-oriented when in fact they're politically oriented. Feminist and Environmental groups often do the same thing. If you want to be a political group, be one. Don't couch yourself as "environmental" or "women's rights" or "consumer advocacy". That's all.
So anyway, since PIRG claims to be a "Public Interest Group" and not a "consumer group," I can trust them a bit further. I still completely disagree with their position on many things (especially Genetically Modified food-I'll blog on that sometime), but I'm willing to say that I do not doubt their position that one in four credit reports contains serious errors.
So? Have your credit report looked at! Hire a professional if you don't know what to look for yourself. Just make sure they're COA-accredited.
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