Legal

Your Rights Under the FCRA

A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., gives consumers important rights when their information is used in tenant-screening, employment, credit, insurance, and other consumer-reporting decisions. This page summarizes those rights and points you to the official Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB") publication for the full text.

Your rights at a glance

  • You must be told if information in your file has been used against you. Anyone who uses a consumer report (including a screening report through RentalApplication.ai) to deny your rental application, charge you a higher deposit, require a co-signer, or take any other "adverse action" must tell you and give you the name, address, and phone number of the consumer reporting agency that supplied the report.
  • You have the right to know what is in your file. You may request and obtain all the information about you in the files of a consumer reporting agency (your "file disclosure"). In some cases — including after an adverse action — your file disclosure is free.
  • You have the right to ask for a credit score. You may request a credit score from consumer reporting agencies that maintain or distribute scores used in residential real-property loans. You will generally have to pay a fee outside the adverse-action context.
  • You have the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information. If you identify information in your file that is incomplete or inaccurate, and report it to the consumer reporting agency, the agency must investigate (generally within 30 days), unless your dispute is frivolous.
  • Inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information must be corrected or deleted. A consumer reporting agency may not report outdated negative information; in most cases, information older than seven years (ten years for bankruptcies) must be excluded.
  • Access to your file is limited. A consumer reporting agency may provide your file information only to people with a valid need — usually to consider a tenancy, employment, credit, or insurance application.
  • You must give consent before reports can be provided to your employer. A consumer reporting agency may not give out information about you to your employer (or prospective employer) without your written consent.
  • You may limit "prescreened" offers of credit and insurance. Unsolicited "prescreened" offers based on information in your credit report must include a toll-free phone number to call if you want your name and address removed from future lists. You may opt out for five years or permanently by calling 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) or visiting OptOutPrescreen.com.
  • You may seek damages from violators. If a consumer reporting agency, or, in some cases, a user of consumer reports or a furnisher of information to a consumer reporting agency, violates the FCRA, you may sue in state or federal court.
  • Identity theft victims and active-duty military have additional rights. See the CFPB Summary of Rights linked below for the additional protections under FCRA §§ 605A and 605B (security freezes, fraud alerts, identity-theft blocks).

Official CFPB Summary

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes the canonical "Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act":

Download the CFPB Summary (PDF)

You may also request a paper copy of the Summary from us by emailing Contact@RentalApplication.ai, free of charge.

How disputes work on RentalApplication.ai

If you have received a screening report through RentalApplication.ai and believe the information is inaccurate or incomplete, you may dispute it in four ways:

  • Web: disputes.rentalapplication.ai — paste the case code printed on your Adverse Action Notice and submit your dispute
  • Email: Disputes@RentalApplication.ai
  • Mail: Lotly Software LLC, Attn: Compliance Officer — RentalApplication.ai, 5754 Lonetree Blvd, Rocklin, CA 95765
  • Phone: Toll-free dispute line coming soon — please use email or mail in the meantime

What we do with disputes. RentalApplication.ai operates as a reseller of consumer reports under FCRA § 603(u). We forward your dispute to the originating consumer reporting agency promptly, and in any event within five (5) business days, as required by FCRA § 1681i(f)(2). The originating agency conducts the substantive reinvestigation and determines whether the information should be corrected, deleted, or left unchanged. You also have the right to dispute directly with the originating agency at the dispute-intake URLs below:

About Vosy. Our AI-assisted prior-landlord reference verification is provided in coordination with Vosy (vosy.ai). Vosy is not a consumer reporting agency and does not maintain a consumer file about you — it places the AI reference call to your prior landlord and records the conversation. If you believe something said on a reference call was inaccurate or incomplete, please dispute through us at Disputes@RentalApplication.ai or via the four channels listed above; we will review the underlying recording and route to the appropriate party.

State law rights

Many states give you additional rights beyond the federal FCRA. For more information on state rights, including those under California Civil Code § 1786 et seq. (which governs Investigative Consumer Reports such as AI-assisted reference verification), see the CFPB Summary referenced above and consult our Privacy Policy §§ 15–16 for the state-specific rights and how to exercise them.

Where to learn more

For more information about your rights under the FCRA, contact:

  • Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — consumerfinance.gov · 1-855-411-CFPB (2372)
  • Federal Trade Commission — ftc.gov · 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357)
  • Your state Attorney General — for state law claims