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Hiring Tools and Information
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Three changes to the Fair Credit Reporting Act that every manager who handles hiring for transportation positions should know.
Some positive changes to the Fair Credit Reporting Act
Here are the three new provisions to the Fair Credit Reporting Act that every employer should know. Sometimes change is good!
- Before the recent change, you were required to provide a disclosure that a consumer report would be obtained on a form that contained only that language. Then, on a separate form, the applicant or employee had to sign an authorization for you to obtain that report. The disclosure and signed authorization are still both required. However, now under the amended law, the disclosure and authorization can be on the same sheet of paper.
- Consumer reporting agencies will no longer be limited to providing only seven years' worth of records. A reporting agency can now go back more than seven years.
- This change covers applicants whose only interaction with the employer has been by mail, telephone, computer or other similar means, and who are applying for transportation positions, including those: over which the Secretary of Transportation has the power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service (i.e., over-the-road truck drivers), or subject to safety regulation by a state transportation agency.
In those cases, you can verbally disclose that you will obtain a consumer report, and the applicant's authorization for the report also can be verbal.
In addition if the above qualifications apply, you are not required to provide a pre-adverse action notice if you take an adverse action (such as refusing to hire). However, you must provide the following within three business days of taking an adverse action:
- Notification that you have taken adverse action because of a consumer report received from a consumer-reporting agency.
- Name, address and telephone number of the consumer-reporting agency that furnished the report, including the toll-free number if the agency works nationwide.
- A statement that the consumer reporting agency did not make the adverse action decision, and is unable to provide the applicant with the specific reasons for the adverse action.
- Notice that the applicant may request a free copy of a consumer report and dispute its accuracy with the consumer-reporting agency.
If the applicant requests a copy of the report from you, you must comply within three days, provided the applicant has given proper identification. You must include a copy of the Federal Trade Commission's consumer rights summary.
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