Academic

And the incentives (or not) for credit reporting companies to get things right, by Elizabeth Warren:

Why should consumers be saddled with the responsibility to monitor the errors of credit reporting agencies? It is MY information about ME.  Someone else is collecting it, creating errors, and passing those errors along to other people. Those errors can cost me a job, denial of homeowners' insurance, a higher premium on my car loan, a higher price to buy a car even for cash, and, of course, a higher price for a mortgage, a credit card, a car loan, or any other loan. And the system says, in effect, it is my problem to monitor the information. It isn't enough that I don't impair my own credit. It is also my problem to find errors that the company has put in, to document the correct those errors, to fight with the company if they won't believe me, to check to make sure the errors were removed and to make sure those errors never reappear. I can even pay for insurance to help me if a credit reporting company makes a mistake.   

Since I already have a full-time job and a life outside that job, I resent this capture of my time. I also believe that a law that puts the burden on consumers to correct errors and puts no penalty on the credit reporting companies for passing along bad information is designed to encourage a high error rate.  There are simply not enough incentives for the credit issuers to spend their money to reduce errors in the credit reporting system or to make correction cheap and quick....

A lot of people end up paying for bad credit reports. Many never know it because they don't know that the price quoted for insurance or a car was based on their credit score. They will just be poorer than they would have been if the credit reporting companies had more incentive to get it right.

All of that sounds right. I have never obtained a loan without needing to clear up something on my credit report. Mistaken transactions are the inevitable fate of a person named Smith, at least under the present system.