It sounds someone crafted a letter for people who own balance and made a mistake when they queried the CRM for a list of customers. I am not convinced that it was meant to be an actual threat to trash the recipient's credit score.
This customer didn't owe anything, so clearly this letter wasn't intended for them, but got it by an error.
I'm all for pitchforking Comcast and other giants who have terrible business practices, but this article seems like it's trying to drum up angst when this can clearly be explained by a mistake.
If I had bad debt and an option to repay my debt or have it cancelled if I do X and X is reasonable, these are both good options.
Although your suggestion is entirely plausible, shaking the chains is also plausible.
It would at least get me to call the company because the letter is written to suggest that there is outstanding debt.
If this was an error: The proper thing to do is a follow-up letter to apologise for the confusion and confirm that their credit rating is not at risk, until that happens it’s fair to assume the worst of the company.
and which FCRA violation specifically? Basic read of FCRA... I don't see one.
I looked briefly[0] and couldn't find anything that explicitly that's what you need to do when describing options.
The only requirement that I can see they are *required* to do:
> furnishes negative information to such an agency regarding credit extended to a customer, the financial institution shall provide a notice of such furnishing of negative information, in writing, to the customer.
And it needs to be 30 days. As far as I can tell, this is in good standing FCRA wise.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0111-fair-credit-r...
You fundamentally misunderstand what I was saying. I was not claiming that they were violating a legal requirement, just that they are behaving unethically, and if the rules allow this then new rules are needed.
Nitpick: Angst != anger