© 2024 Association of American Medical Colleges 80 aamc.org
2025 AMCAS
®
Applicant Guide
more information, including information about additional rights, go to
consumerfinance.gov/learnmore
or write to: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
1700 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20552.
• You must be told if information in your file has been used against you. Anyone who uses a
credit report or another type of consumer report to deny your application for credit, insurance, or
employment — or to take another adverse action against you — must tell you and must give you
the name, address, and phone number of the agency that provided the information.
• 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”). You will
be required to provide proper identification, which may include your Social Security number. In
many cases, the disclosure will be free. You are entitled to a free file disclosure if:
o A person has taken adverse action against you because of information in your credit
report.
o You are the victim of identity theft and place a fraud alert in your file.
o Your file contains inaccurate information as a result of fraud.
o You are on public assistance.
o You are unemployed but expect to apply for employment within 60 days.
In addition, all consumers are entitled to one free disclosure every 12 months upon request from each
nationwide credit bureau and from nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies.
See
consumerfinance.gov/learnmore
for additional information.
• You have the right to ask for a credit score. Credit scores are numerical summaries of your
creditworthiness based on information from credit bureaus. You may request a credit score from
consumer reporting agencies that create scores or distribute scores used in residential real
property loans, but you will have to pay for it. In some mortgage transactions, you will receive
credit score information for free from the mortgage lender.
•
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 unless your dispute is frivolous. Refer to
consumerfinance.gov/learnmore
for an explanation of dispute procedures.
• Consumer reporting agencies must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable
information. Inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information must be removed or corrected,
usually within 30 days. However, a consumer reporting agency may continue to report information
it has verified as accurate.
• Consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information. In most cases,
a consumer reporting agency may not report negative information that is more than seven years
old or bankruptcies that are more than 10 years old.
• Access to your file is limited. A consumer reporting agency may provide information about you
only to people with a valid need — usually to consider an application with a creditor, insurer,
employer, landlord, or other business. The FCRA specifies those with a valid need for access.
• You must give your consent for reports to be provided to employers. A consumer reporting
agency may not give out information about you to your employer, or a potential employer,
without your written consent given to the employer. Written consent generally is not required in
the trucking industry. For more information, go to consumerfinance.gov/learnmore
.