From: jpshinley@my-deja.com (Jerry Shinley) Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk Subject: FTC and Senate Eye Retail Credit Company Practices Approved: jmcadams@shell.core.com Return-Path: Delivered-To: jmcadams@mv.mv.com X-Peer-Info: remote-ip 169.207.3.122 local-ip 199.125.85.17 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 216 Message-ID: <95eb686c.0309170430.122cee32@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spamscanner: mailbox6.ucsd.edu (v1.2 May 26 2003 01:55:38, 0.0/5.0 2.55) X-Spam-Level: Level X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.7 70763 h8HCUaGU082468 mailbox6.ucsd.edu) NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.125.85.17 X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.125.85.17 Date: 17 Sep 2003 17:58:20 -0500 X-Trace: 17 Sep 2003 17:58:20 -0500, 199.125.85.17 Wall Street Journal Dec 19, 1973 P5 FTC Says Retail Credit Co. Uses Deception to Glean Often Incorrect Data on Americans Washington - [...] A 14-page complaint by the Federal Trade Commission included charges that the Atlanta-based company forces its investigators to abide by a "quota of adverse information." [...] Similarly, the FTC complaint says, Retail Credit uses deceptive practices on its own clients. For instance, the agency says, Retail Credit investigators get most of their information over the telephone, while telling clients they get data through personal interviews and visits to neighborhoods. One report cited by the FTC described a person's home as "small and inadequate" even though the investigator never saw the home, the agency contends. [...] New York Times Feb 6, 1974 P14 Credit Investigators Say They Had to Falsify Data Washington - [...] [My summary: Four investigators for the Retail Credit Company testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Credit. Three had resigned; the other "was removed because of his 'fabrications'". They claimed there was a quota for unfavorable reports of 6 to 10 per cent.] Retail Credit also violated agreements with its customers by getting in touch with only one source in an investigation rather than two sources, the men said. Estimates of the percentage of one-source checks range from 50 per cent to 95 per cent [...]. [...] [The investigators also claimed] they had been forced to process 18 to 20 reports a day when they could turn out only half that number adequately. [...] [...] A Federal Trade Commission manual uses excerpts from a 1974 complaint against the Retail Credit Company as a model for such complaints: http://www.ftc.gov/foia/ch09specialstatutes.pdf Federal Trade Commission Operating Manual Chapter Nine SPECIAL STATUTES page 11 See Illustrations 3 and 4 for pertinent parts of the Retail Credit complaint and order (Dkt. 8954, complaint issued Feb. 21, 1974), which describe typical and illustrative examples. of Fair Credit Reporting Act violations. [...] a) Retail Credit Company (Equifax), (Dkt. 8954, complaint issued Feb. 21, 1974). [...] page 30 Illustration 3 Fair Credit Reporting Act Complaint Format PARAGRAPH : In the ordinary course and conduct of its business, as aforesaid, respondent employs certain procedures in the preparation of consumer reports and investigative consumer reports, as defined herein, which do not assure the maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individuals about whom the reports relate. Typical and illustrative of such procedures, but not all inclusive thereof, are the following: (1) a salary/production system which causes or requires its investigative personnel, as defined herein, to complete or prepare an unreasonable number of consumer reports or investigative consumer reports, or to average an unreasonable number of said completed reports per day or other period; (2) quotas for adverse information, as defined herein which causes or requires its investigative personnel to complete or prepare a certain proportion of consumer reports or investigative, consumer reports, containing negative or derogatory information about the consumers who are the subject of the reports; and/or (3) paying or "crediting" an investigator for a reinvestigation conducted pursuant to § 611 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act only if the reinvestigation proves that the investigator was accurate in his initial investigation. PARAGRAPH : By and through the use of these aforesaid procedures, and others similar thereto, but not expressly set out herein, respondent imposes requirements and pressures upon its investigative personnel which are inconsistent with accurate reporting and which have the tendency and capacity to promote incomplete or inaccurate reports. Therefore, respondent has failed and is failing to adopt reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individuals about whom the reports relate, as required by § 607(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Fair Credit Reporting Act Order Format The proposed order requires respondents to cease and desist from: 4. Employing or using any system, plan, or procedure which results in its investigative personnel completing or preparing: (a) an unreasonable number of consumer reports or to average an unreasonable number of said reports or units of said reports per day or other period; or (b) a certain proportion of consumer reports or investigative consumer reports containing adverse information about or relating to the consumers who are the subjects of the reports. For purposes of subparagraph 4(a) above, an unreasonable number of consumer reports shall be page 31 Illustration 4 that number of reports which an investigator cannot, with due diligence, complete or prepare while attempting to conform to the following procedures: (1) interviewing all the sources or other third parties listed on said reports; (2) conducting all interviews directly and in person; (3) making all observations of the homes, neighborhood, or other physical surroundings of the consumers who are the subjects of the reports, directly and in person; (4) confirming all adverse information through interviews with an independent source. For purposes of subparagraph 4(b) above, each of the following typical and illustrative practices, as well as other similar practices not specifically set out herein, shall constitute a system, plan, or procedure which requires or compels the production of a certain proportion of consumer reports containing adverse information: (1) exhorting or urging an investigator to prepare a certain proportion of consumer reports containing adverse information; (2) posting any chart or listing which indicates or ranks the proportion of consumer reports prepared by an investigator which contains adverse information; (3) indicating that an investigator is not earning his/her salary or doing his/her job because he/she is failing to prepare a certain proportion of consumer reports containing adverse information. 5. Taking or threatening to take, directly or indirectly, any of the following actions based on an investigator's failure to complete or prepare an unreasonable number of consumer reports or to complete, or prepare a certain proportion of consumer reports containing adverse information, as set out in paragraph 4, above: (a) reducing or withholding the investigator's bonus or expense allowance, including his/her stenographic or automobile allowance; (b) reducing the investigator's job status from salaried to fee or from full time to part time; (c) failing or refusing to promote or to increase the job status or job responsibility of an investigator; or (d) firing or transferring an investigator or imposing other similar disciplinary action. So the deficiencies seen in the report on Oswald prepared for Reily Coffee by Henry Coe Desmare, such as apparently talking to only one source, are the same practices Retail Credit was accused of in the 1970's after the passage of the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1970. Even with an arbitrary quota of negative reports as high as 10%, there's still a 9 in 10 chance of getting a favorable report. Jerry Shinley