Knowing the law can definitely benefit you. There are many laws that help protect consumer’s rights, and understanding them can help you not be taken advantage of as well as maximizing your rights to further reach your goals. Down below are seven Acts you should know.
Equal Credit Opportunity Act:
This act prevents creditors from being biased against credit applicants due to discriminatory facts like race, religion, sex, color, nationality, marital status, age, or having public assistance. This not only covers individuals’ credit, but also credit given to small businesses.
Consumer Credit Protection Act:
The Consumer Credit Protection Act protects consumer interests against lenders. It requires lenders to tell the borrower the actual cost of the loan in terms that they understand, including interest and any other fees involved.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act:
This law requires every financial institution to explain their information-sharing practices to their customers and protect their sensitive information. Information shared could be banking information, personal information, etc. An alternate name for this Act is the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999.
Truth in Lending Act:
The Truth in Lending Act helps you against unfair credit card and billing practices by requiring lenders to give you information about the loan cost to comparison shop for the loan that best meets your needs.
Fair Credit Reporting Act:
This Act regulates the information of your credit and credit report information. It encourages fairness, accuracy, and privacy of any consumer information located in the credit reporting agencies’ files.
Fair Credit Billing Act:
This particular law protects consumers from being billed unfairly by laying out a set of guidelines for both creditors and consumers to solve disputes about billing statements. It also allows consumers to disagree with credit card issuers’ charges.
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act:
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act makes sure that debt collectors don’t use deceptive, or unfair, tactics to collect debt from you. It also limits the ability of any third-party debt collectors collecting debt from you on someone else’s behalf.
All in all, these acts are all very important to you as a consumer. They protect your rights and allow you to know what you can and can’t do. This also prevents others from deceiving you.
Written by Allie Chang