“credit reporting”

required credit agencies to make their records available to the consumer and report credit information only to authorized third parties. It also provided procedures by which consumers could challenge and correct faulty information and have the corrected version disseminated to the appropriate parties. Related consumer credit legislation includes the Fair Credit Billing Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1666 et seq. (1974), which gave consumers a means to challenge billing errors and required creditors to make all necessary adjustments; the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1691 et seq. (1974; amended 1976), which prohibited the denial of credit based on sex, marital status, age, race, religion, or national origin; the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. (1977), which curbed potential abuses by debt collection agencies; and the Fair and Accurate Transaction Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (2003), which helps consumers fight identity theft.