Identity Theft Red Flags and Address Discrepancies under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act)

Section 114 of the FACT Act amended section 615 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to require the Agencies (OCC, FRB, FDIC, NCUA, and FTC) to issue jointly: • Guidelines for financial institutions and creditors regarding identity theft with respect to their account holders and customers (in developing the guidelines, the Agencies are required to identify patterns, practices, and specific forms of activity that indicate the possible existence of identity theft. The guidelines must be updated as often as necessary and cannot be inconsistent with the policies and procedures required under section 326 of the USA PATRIOT Act, 31 U.S.C. 5318(l).); • Regulations that require each financial institution and each creditor to establish reasonable policies and procedures for implementing the guidelines to identify possible risks to account holders or customers or to the safety and soundness of the institution or creditor; and • Regulations generally requiring credit and debit card issuers to assess the validity of change of address requests under certain circumstances. Section 315 of the FACT Act amended section 605 of the FCRA to require the Agencies to issue regulations providing guidance regarding reasonable policies and procedures that a user of consumer reports must employ when a user receives a notice of address discrepancy from a consumer reporting agency (CRA). These regulations were required to describe reasonable policies and procedures for users of consumer reports to: • Enable a user to form a reasonable belief that it knows the identity of the person for whom it has obtained a consumer report; and • Reconcile the address of the consumer with the CRA, if the user establishes a continuing relationship with the consumer and regularly and in the ordinary course of business furnishes information to the CRA.

The latest form for Identity Theft Red Flags and Address Discrepancies under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act) expires 2022-06-30 and can be found here.

Existing Respondents

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