The Fair Credit Reporting Act

Consumer Report and the FCRA
I have applied for credit on numerous occasions and was surprised to see that what I thought would be a good report was actually negative because I had failed to pay a bill to a cell phone provider when a switched service to a different provider. The bill was not even expensive yet it hurt my credit rating severely and to this day is still on it, impacting my credit score. This caused me to get a poorer interest rate when I went to borrow to buy a car, which meant I ended up paying more in the long run—much more—all because I failed to take care of one small, insignificant bill way back in the past when I could have easily paid it had I given it more attention.
I have also had a negative experience with my consumer report when I went to apply for a job as a mail driver with the USPS. I aced the test and did very well in the interview and was all set to get the job, but when the USPS reviewed my consumer report and saw my driving record, which contained information about my failure to pay a seat belt license fine (which resulted in my license being suspended), I was told I could not have the job because of my driving record.
So twice my consumer report has hurt me and in both cases all because I failed to pay small bills that I thought would not be important—yet every time their importance has seemed to be far more than I first assigned it. In fact, it seems disproportionate to the reality of the situation and I find it to be quite irritating that something as little as a $25 fine for not wearing a seat belt would prevent me from getting a job that I was perfectly qualified to hold, or that a small cell phone bill should prevent me from obtaining a decent interest rate when I went to take out a loan, even though I was being gauged by the cell phone company for two years while under contract.
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If I were revising the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), I would change the amount of time that a missed bill payment or a bill that was sent to collections stays on your credit report. The current period for a bill sent to collections to stay on your credit report is 7 years (Experian, 2017). That seems like a long time—especially if the bill is just one small one like what I had. That should only stay on one’s report for maybe three or four years maximum—or there should be some description of the bill that was sent to collections. The credit report can give the impression that I was having lots of bills sent to collections when the reality is that it was just one for $60 because I was trying to make a point to my cell phone service about how bad they were by refusing to pay that last bill after I switched to a new service. It had nothing to do with my ability to pay or with my creditworthiness—it was all about protesting against a corporation that I felt was unjustifiably taking advantage of its customers—as it often did with me, sending me charges for service that were not fair or correct.
The FCRA should do a better job, therefore, of reflecting the reality. For a person who has a lot of bills that go to collections, it should show that. For a person who has just one go to collections, it should show that. It should also allow persons the opportunity to upload an explanation so that their side of the story can be put on the record. As of now, it is unfortunate that only the lender’s side of the story gets included in the report—so in this sense, it is extremely one-sided and the nature of the reporting is completely disproportionate to the actual facts of one’s consumer history, in my opinion—so that is what I would change. Other than that, I do not think it should grant different rights or be changed in any other ways.

References
Experian. (2017). How long do collections stay on your credit report? Retrieved from
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/how-long-collections-stay-credit-report/