About two years ago, I had some financial problems that lead to one of
my credit card accounts being referred to a (particularly nasty)
third-party collections agency. This agency harassed me constantly
for a few weeks until we agreed upon a payment plan which I
successfully fulfilled ahead of schedule.
I recently got up the nerve to finally check my credit report to see
what kind of damage I had done. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as I
thought and everything seems to have been reported correctly (and some
late payments weren't even reported at all).
However, under the "Inquiries" section, I noticed that the third-party
collections agency in question did, at one point, actually obtain a
full copy of my credit report. I am wondering if this is legal, or if
it represents a violation of my rights. I'm sure that at the time I
signed up for the credit card, I gave Citibank permission to check my
credit report in order to approve me. But at no time did I knowingly
or explicity give permission to this collections agency to access that
information. Are they allowed to get that information under the
umbrella of the permission I gave to the credit card company or by
some other law, or did they violate my rights by doing so?
I have since read several articles about this company being
successfully sued and fined several times over violations that
occurred during the time period which I interacted with them. I am
not one to try to avoid my debts, and was more than happy to pay it
off at the time, but given the way they treated me in the process, I
am very interested to find out if there is any sort of action I can
take against them now. |
