You Have Rights When an Employer Rejects Your Application Based on a Bad Credit Report

You may have been surprised when your potential employer asked for your permission run your credit report, but as you have nothing to hide and you really wanted the job, you signed the release and waited for your job offer. When it didn’t come, you were stunned and contacted the employer to ask why. He made a vague reference to your credit report and ended the conversation. You know your credit report is stellar. What do you do now?

You Have the Right to Know Why

There are several things wrong with this scenario. Yes, the employer was within his rights to request your credit report because he asked for and received your written permission. The problem, however, is what he did with the presumably negative information he discovered in the report. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the employer should have done the following:

1. Because he chose not to hire you based on something discovered in your credit report, he is required by law to give you a copy of the report and a copy of the FTC’s Summary of Your Rights Under the FCRA.

2. The Summary of Rights should tell you how to contact the company that provided the report to the employer.

3. Once you review the report, if you find that your credit report contains false or incorrect information, you should ask the credit reporting agency to fix the mistakes.

4. You should also inform the employer of the errors.

Remember that, under the FCRA, you are entitled to a free credit report every year. We recommend that you review your report annually and correct any errors you find. You may obtain your free report at http://www.annualcreditreport.com.

You Can Take Action to Protect Your Rights

If you missed out on a job opportunity due to mistakes on your credit report or you are having problems with a credit reporting agency not correcting errors on your report, contact Attorney John Gayle at the Consumer Law Group at 804-282-7900.