A State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has awarded compensation against both a bank and a credit information company for the delayed correction of an erroneous 'default' entry in a consumer's credit report, holding that the 30-day correction timeline under the Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005 and RBI's related directions runs from the date the reporting bank itself confirms the entry was erroneous: not from the later date on which the credit bureau completes its own internal processing.
The complainant, a salaried employee, had been denied a car loan after his credit report showed a default on a credit card account he had, in fact, closed and settled years earlier. His written representation to the bank was acknowledged and the error admitted within two weeks, but the corrected data was not reflected with the credit information company for a further four months, during which the erroneous entry continued to affect his loan applications.
The Commission held both the bank, as the entity originating the incorrect data, and the credit information company, as the entity responsible for propagating corrections to its records, jointly and severally liable for the delay and resulting harm, rejecting the credit bureau's defence that it could only act on data feeds received through its normal monthly reporting cycle from the bank once the error was already admitted.