Credit bureaus don’t have to report your “good” accounts.

Consumers often enter into credit transactions for the express purpose of improving their credit. They live up to the terms of their deals by paying always on time. They reason that their track records merit the rewards they hoped–improved credit scores.

They are later dully disappointed when they get their credit reports and find no entry for the accounts in question. That’s when they call me complaining that the credit bureaus are doing them wrong by not reporting those “good” accounts. I hate to break the news to them, there is nothing I can do.

Credit bureaus don’t have to report any specific accounts, even when a creditor sends them a consumer’s information. That is the word from Hammer v. Equifax Info. Servs., L.L.C., 974 F.3d 564 (5th Cir. 2020). I take Hammer, along with other generally well-established Fair Credit Reporting Act law, to stand for the proposition that credit bureaus have no duty to report, but if they do, the reporting must be accurate, complete and not misleading.

Sorry to be the bearer of this bad news, but it’s the law.