In addition to selling credit reports, CRAS sell prescreened lists to providers of credit and insurance products. Prescreening involves CRAs' creating a list of consumers who meet criteria specified by purchasers of the list. For example, credit card companies use prescreened lists to identify and solicit consumers who qualify for "pre-approved" offers of their credit card product. According to industry sources, 3.5 billion prescreened offers were made in 2000 based on prescreening lists created by CRAS." The FCRA allows consumers to opt out of such offers.

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FULFILLMENT NUMBER D17818

AARP PPI ISSUE BRIEF NUMBER 58 PAGE 2 OF 8

Inaccuracies can also occur when a creditor sells a delinquent account to a debt collector. Once the original creditor sells the account to a debt collector, the debt collector becomes the furnisher of information on this account to the CRAS. The main source of inaccuracy in this case results from incorrect reporting of the date of initial delinquency on the account. One concern is that debt collectors may report the date they purchased or received the account as the date of initial delinquency, even though the actual date of initial delinquency was likely much carlier. 33 Because the FCRA stipulates that most

FULFILLMENT NUMBER D17818