When it comes to rental screening, much of the data housing providers rely on comes from TransUnion.

CFPB & FTC Take Action Against
TransUnion for Their Rental
Screening Practices

On October 12th, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action against the rental screening subsidiary of TransUnion for a lot of violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

TransUnion failed on several fronts:

• Did not take steps to make sure the rental background checks were accurate.
• Withheld from renters, the names of the third parties providing inaccurate data.

The FTC and the CFPB requested that the federal court order TransUnion to pay $15 million and to make improvements on how it reports evictions.

In another, separate action, the CFPB ordered TransUnion to pay another $8 million for lying to consumers about their timely placement or removal of security freezes and locks on credit reports.

Further, they failed to keep active duty military off of pre-screened solicitation lists.

The CFPB issued a press release on this matter.