Increasingly businesses use information of credit bureaus to assess whether and under what conditions they offer consumers a credit, telecommunication or energy service contract. The information is used to calculate a score that represents the consumers’ credit-worthiness.
As of 1 April 2010 German consumers have new rights vis-à-vis credit bureaus. Now they can ask credit bureaus what information they store about the consumer, what scores they have calculated and what data went into the calculation. Furthermore, credit bureaus need to give consumers an understandable explanation what factors mainly impacted the score. This service is free of charge once a year.
Director of the German Federation of Consumer Organizations, Gerd Billen, called upon consumers to make use of their rights and report back their experience to the the consumer organization.
For further information, see: http://www.bmelv.de/cln_181/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/2010/056-AI-Scoring.html und http://www.vzbv.de/go/presse/1287/36/102/index.html
Source: BMELV und vzbv