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Credit report errors in Florida: what the law says

There is an error on my credit report

State law

What the statute says

Small claims limit

$8,000

Fla. Sm. Cl. R. 7.010(b) (Florida Small Claims Rules, January 1, 2026 edition, as posted by Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit): "These rules are applicable to all actions of a civil nature in the county courts which contain a demand for money or property, the value of which does not exceed $8,000 exclusive of costs, interest, and attorneys' fees." The cap is measured on the principal demand; costs, interest, and attorney's fees are excluded.

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A claim above $8,000 proceeds in county court under the ordinary civil rules rather than the small-claims rules; the county-court jurisdictional ceiling itself is set separately by Fla. Stat. s. 34.01, whose amount is not stated on this page. A federal FCRA claim may be filed in state court (15 U.S.C. s. 1681p), so a Florida consumer can bring an FCRA claim of $8,000 or less in small claims court.

Code section

Fla. Stat. s. 501.005 (consumer report security freeze; History: s. 1, ch. 2006-124; s. 38, ch. 2011-194; s. 1, ch. 2018-62) and s. 501.0051 (protected consumer security freeze; History: s. 2, ch. 2014-66; s. 2, ch. 2018-62; s. 1, ch. 2021-104).

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Adjacent, non-credit-reporting statutes that bear on a Florida credit-reporting dispute: Fla. Stat. s. 559.72(6) and (9) and s. 559.77 (the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, Part VI of chapter 559; s. 559.72 last amended by s. 1, ch. 2025-23; s. 559.77 last amended by s. 4, ch. 2025-23); Fla. Stat. s. 395.3011 (History: s. 4, ch. 2024-183; s. 1, ch. 2025-98); and Fla. Stat. s. 95.11(3)(e) and (4) (limitations). The text is "The 2026 Florida Statutes" as published by the Florida Legislature at leg.state.fl.us. None of these sections belongs to a "Florida Fair Credit Reporting Act": Florida has enacted no statute under that name, and neither the chapter 501 nor the chapter 559 table of contents lists a consumer-credit-reporting part. Florida's rules on this subject sit inside the two security-freeze sections above and inside statutes aimed at other actors, rather than in a single credit-reporting act. A table of contents can show that no part is named for credit reporting; it cannot show that no section anywhere else in Florida law applies, so the list above is the set of sections this page relies on rather than a demonstration that nothing further exists.

Statutory damages

No Florida statutory damages for inaccurate credit reporting as such — federal 15 U.S.C. s. 1681n ($100-$1,000 per willful violation, punitive) and s. 1681o (actual damages, negligent) govern. Two Florida provisions carry their own damages in adjacent niches, each with its scope limit: (A) Security freeze, Fla. Stat.

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s. 501.005(16): for a WILLFUL failure to comply with s. 501.005, "actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, plus the cost of the action together with reasonable attorney's fees" ((16)(a)); for a NEGLIGENT failure, "actual damages ... of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000" with no fee provision ((16)(d)); "[p]unitive damages may be assessed for willful violations" ((16)(c)); and anyone who obtains a consumer report under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose is liable to the consumer for actual damages or "not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, whichever is greater" ((16)(b)). Note the drafting: (16)(a) and (d) attach the $100-$1,000 range to "actual damages," not to a stand-alone statutory-damages award — do not describe them as "$1,000 per violation." Liability is under a section that, being on the subject matter of 15 U.S.C. s. 1681c-1(i)-(j), is exposed to preemption under s. 1681t(b)(1)(J) and (b)(5)(B). (B) FCCPA, Fla. Stat. s. 559.77(2): a person who violates s. 559.72 "is liable for actual damages and for additional statutory damages as the court may allow, but not exceeding $1,000, together with court costs and reasonable attorney's fees incurred by the plaintiff"; the court "may award punitive damages"; the up-to-$1,000 is per action (in a class action, up to $1,000 per named plaintiff and an aggregate for the class of the lesser of $500,000 or 1 percent of net worth). Defeated by the s. 559.77(3) bona fide error defense, subject to the 2-year limit in s. 559.77(4), and — when the violation alleged is credit reporting — exposed to s. 1681t(b)(1)(F) preemption. (C) Protected-consumer freeze, s. 501.0051(13): private damages only against a person who obtains the protected consumer's report or record under false pretenses or without a permissible purpose (actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater); a bureau's willful failure to comply with s. 501.0051 draws a $500-per-violation ADMINISTRATIVE penalty imposed by FDACS (s. 501.0051(12)), not a consumer damages award.

When it can be extended

No Florida overlay — federal 15 U.S.C. s. 1681i(a)(1)(B) governs (15-day extension when the consumer supplies additional relevant information during the 30-day period).

What the bureau must do

No Florida overlay on bureau accuracy, reinvestigation, or disclosure duties — federal 15 U.S.C. s. 1681e(b), s. 1681g and s. 1681i govern. The only Florida duties imposed directly on a consumer reporting agency are security-freeze duties under Fla. Stat. s. 501.005 (adult) and s.

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501.0051 (protected consumer), plus a disclosure add-on: s. 501.005(17) requires that any written disclosure a bureau makes to a Florida resident under 15 U.S.C. s. 1681g "shall include a written summary of all rights the consumer has under this section" (the freeze rights), with the warning paragraph in "at least 12-point boldface type" and, for nationwide bureaus, a toll-free number.

Fla. Stat. s. 501.005 is Florida's security-freeze section, and it speaks to a consumer reporting agency as defined in 15 U.S.C. s. 1681a(f).

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A security freeze is a notice placed in the consumer report that bars the agency from releasing the report, the credit score, or any information in it to a third party without the consumer's express authorization, s. 501.005(1). A consumer places one by making a request in writing by certified mail and including information that properly identifies the consumer, s. 501.005(2). The agency must place the freeze no later than 5 business days after receiving the request, s. 501.005(3). It must send written confirmation within 10 business days after instituting the freeze, and must give the consumer a unique personal identification number or password to use when authorizing a temporary lift under subsection (5) or a removal under subsection (11), s. 501.005(4). A consumer asking for a temporary lift must give the agency proper identification as determined by the agency, that personal identification number or password, and information specifying the period of time for which the report is to be made available, s. 501.005(5); a request on those terms must be met no later than 3 business days after it is received, s. 501.005(6). The freeze remains in place until the consumer requests that it be removed, and the agency must remove it within 3 business days after receiving the removal request from a consumer who, on making it, provides proper identification and that personal identification number or password, s. 501.005(11). Apart from a consumer request, the agency may remove a freeze only if the report was frozen due to a material misrepresentation of fact by the consumer, and it must notify the consumer in writing before removing it, s. 501.005(8)(b). No fee may be charged to a consumer who elects to place, remove, or temporarily lift a freeze, s. 501.005(13)(a); a reasonable fee 'not to exceed $10' is allowed in one situation only, where the consumer fails to retain the original PIN or password and the agency must reissue or replace it, s. 501.005(13)(b). While a freeze is in effect the agency may not change the name, address, date of birth, or Social Security number in the report without sending the consumer written confirmation of the change within 30 days after the change is posted to the consumer's file, s. 501.005(14). Written confirmation is not required for technical corrections, including name and street abbreviations, complete spellings, or transposition of numbers or letters, and on an address change the confirmation goes to both the new address and the former address, s. 501.005(14).

The section carries express carve-outs, so these duties do not run against every agency or every use. It does not apply to a check services company, s. 501.005(15)(a); to a deposit account information service company issuing reports on account closures to an inquiring financial institution, s. 501.005(15)(b); to a fraud prevention services company, s. 501.005(15)(d); or to an agency acting only as a reseller -- one that assembles and merges information from another agency's database and does not maintain a permanent database of credit information from which new consumer reports are produced, s. 501.005(15)(c). Even so, an agency must honor any security freeze placed, removed, or temporarily lifted on a consumer report by another consumer reporting agency, s. 501.005(15)(c). A freeze also does not block use of the report by a person to whom the consumer owes a financial obligation, or that person's subsidiary, affiliate, or agent, or an assignee of the obligation, where the consumer has or had -- prior to assignment -- an account or contract with that person, including a deposit account, or issued that person a negotiable instrument, and then for the purposes of reviewing the account or collecting the financial obligation, s. 501.005(12)(a); by a state agency acting within its lawful investigative or regulatory authority, s. 501.005(12)(c); by a state or local law enforcement agency investigating a crime or conducting a criminal background check, s. 501.005(12)(d); by a person administering a credit file monitoring subscription service to which the consumer has subscribed, s. 501.005(12)(e); by a person providing the consumer a copy of the report upon the consumer's request, s. 501.005(12)(f); pursuant to a court order lawfully entered, s. 501.005(12)(g); for prescreening as provided for by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, s. 501.005(12)(h); or by an insurance company setting or adjusting a rate, adjusting a claim, or underwriting for insurance purposes, s. 501.005(12)(i). A database or file used solely for criminal record information, personal loss history, fraud prevention or detection, tenant screening, or employment screening is outside the section as well, s. 501.005(12)(j).

These Florida periods are not necessarily the operative ones, and the statute does not settle the question. Federal law also addresses security freezes, and that federal text is not set out here, so how the two sets of deadlines compare is not stated. Section 501.005 contains no preemption clause, says nothing about how the two fit together, and its history note ends at ch. 2018-62. So whether each Florida requirement above still operates as written is unresolved on the face of the statute -- most pointedly the certified-mail form of request in s. 501.005(2)(a), repeated in the consumer rights summary at s. 501.005(17)(a), and the reissue fee of 'not to exceed $10' in s. 501.005(13)(b). The text also does not define when an agency 'does not maintain a permanent database of credit information,' so which resellers fall inside the carve-out in s. 501.005(15)(c) is not answered by the statute.

What the furnisher must do

No Florida credit-reporting statute imposes duties on furnishers, and Florida is NOT one of the two states whose furnisher provisions are saved from preemption by 15 U.S.C. s. 1681t(b)(1)(F) (only Cal. Civ. Code s. 1785.25(a) and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93 s. 54A(a) are saved). The nearest Florida provision is FCCPA s.

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559.72(6), which applies to any "person" "[i]n collecting consumer debts" (creditors and collectors alike, not only third-party collectors): a person may not "[d]isclose information concerning the existence of a debt known to be reasonably disputed by the debtor without disclosing that fact," and if the debt was disclosed before the dispute was asserted, then on the debtor's written dispute notice and request the discloser "must reveal upon the request of the debtor within 30 days the details of the dispute to each person to whom disclosure of the debt without notice of the dispute was made within the preceding 90 days." Also potentially relevant: s. 559.72(9), which bars a person from "[c]laim[ing], attempt[ing], or threaten[ing] to enforce a debt when such person knows that the debt is not legitimate." DEFEASIBILITY in the same field: s. 559.72(6) is triggered only by a dispute that is "known" to the discloser and "reasonabl[e]"; the 30-day/90-day correction mechanic requires the debtor's own written notice AND request; s. 559.77(3) gives a bona fide error defense; and, because reporting a debt to a credit bureau is the subject matter of 15 U.S.C. s. 1681s-2, a furnisher sued under s. 559.72(6) for its credit reporting has a real preemption defense under s. 1681t(b)(1)(F) (see federal_preemption_analysis). The FCCPA does not reach consumer reporting agencies at all — bureaus do not collect debts.

Your right to free reports

No Florida overlay — federal 15 U.S.C. s. 1681j governs (free annual report; free report after adverse action, fraud alert, or unemployment/public-assistance status). Florida adds only that the s. 1681g disclosure sent to a Florida resident must include the s.

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501.005(17) summary of freeze rights, and that placing, lifting, and removing a freeze is fee-free (s. 501.005(13)(a); s. 501.0051(9)).

Governing law

Florida has no single consumer credit reporting act. No Florida statute answers to a name like California's Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act, New York GBL Art. 25, Texas Bus. & Com. Code ch.

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20, or Washington RCW 19.182, and no credit-reporting part appears in the chapter 501 table of contents (Part I General Provisions, ss. 501.001-501.1738; Part II Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices; Part III Aftermarket Crash Parts; Part IV Telemarketing; Part V Data Privacy and Security; Part VI Miscellaneous; Part VII Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices; Part VIII Patent Troll Prevention) or in the chapter 559 table of contents, whose Part VI is "Consumer Collection Practices" (ss. 559.55-559.785). Florida is instead a SECURITY-FREEZE-STATUTE state: the sections addressed directly to consumer reporting agencies are Fla. Stat. s. 501.005 ("Consumer report security freeze") and s. 501.0051 ("Protected consumer report security freeze"), both falling inside Part I of chapter 501. Florida does supply its own damages for violations of s. 501.005, so a Florida security-freeze claim is not necessarily a federal-only claim. Subsection (16) provides that, "[i]n addition to any other penalties or remedies provided under law, a person who is aggrieved by a violation of the provisions of this section may bring a civil action": (a) anyone who willfully fails to comply with a requirement of the section is liable to that consumer for actual damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, plus the cost of the action together with reasonable attorney's fees; (b) an individual who obtains a consumer report under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose is liable to the consumer for actual damages or $100 to $1,000, whichever is greater, and a person who obtains a report from a consumer reporting agency the same way is liable to that agency for its actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater; (c) punitive damages may be assessed for willful violations; (d) a negligent failure to comply carries the same $100 to $1,000 actual-damages liability; and (e) where the court finds that an unsuccessful pleading, motion, or other paper was filed in bad faith or for purposes of harassment, the court shall award the prevailing party attorney's fees reasonable in relation to the work of responding. Subsection (17) requires a consumer reporting agency that makes a written disclosure to a Florida resident under 15 U.S.C. s. 1681g to include a written summary of the consumer's rights under the section, and requires a nationwide agency to supply a toll-free number. How far that state remedy reaches a nationwide bureau is a separate question: 15 U.S.C. s. 1681t(b)(1)(J) and (b)(5)(B) give such a bureau a strong argument that Florida's freeze requirements, and with them the s. 501.005(16) remedy, are preempted as to it, and the text set out here does not settle the point. Everything else a Florida demand letter can use comes from statutes aimed at OTHER actors: the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA), Fla. Stat. ss. 559.55-559.785, whose s. 559.72(6) bars a person collecting a consumer debt from disclosing a known, reasonably disputed debt without disclosing the dispute; and Fla. Stat. s. 395.3011, which bars a licensed hospital or ambulatory surgical center from "[r]eporting adverse information about the individual to consumer credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus" until certain billing steps are complete. Two boundaries belong on the record. First, whether Florida adds anything to the federal rules on reinvestigation deadlines, general bureau accuracy duties, furnisher duties, or free reports cannot be settled from chapter listings: a table of contents shows that no part is named for credit reporting, but it cannot show that no section elsewhere in Florida law imposes such a duty. The Consumer Collection Practices part of chapter 559 is the clearest example — its provisions are not among the texts set out on this page, and nothing here establishes whether it places state duties on a furnisher that reports to a credit bureau. Second, the s. 501.005(16) civil action is worded as a remedy for a violation "of the provisions of this section," and that section is about security freezes; the text does not say whether the action also reaches ordinary credit-reporting disputes such as an inadequate reinvestigation or an inaccurate report. On the ground those two boundaries leave open, federal FCRA is the law that clearly applies.

Attorney's fees

Fla. Stat. s. 501.005(16)(a): for a WILLFUL freeze violation, "the cost of the action together with reasonable attorney's fees" — not for negligent violations under (16)(d). Fla. Stat. s.

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559.77(2): the FCCPA plaintiff recovers "court costs and reasonable attorney's fees incurred by the plaintiff," BUT "[i]f the court finds that the suit fails to raise a justiciable issue of law or fact, the plaintiff is liable for court costs and reasonable attorney's fees incurred by the defendant." s. 501.005(16)(e) likewise shifts fees against a party whose "unsuccessful pleading, motion, or other paper ... was filed in bad faith or for purposes of harassment." For credit-report accuracy claims themselves, no Florida overlay — federal 15 U.S.C. s. 1681n(a)(3) and s. 1681o(a)(2) govern.

Time limit to sue

2 years

The 2-year figure is the FCCPA's own limit, Fla. Stat. s. 559.77(4): "An action brought under this section must be commenced within 2 years after the date the alleged violation occurred" — it governs only claims under s.

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559.72 (e.g., a collector's or creditor's disclosure of a disputed debt without flagging the dispute). It does NOT apply to FCRA claims, which keep the federal limit in 15 U.S.C. s. 1681p (2 years from discovery, 5 years from violation — baseline, not researched here). Security-freeze claims under s. 501.005 have no limitations period in that section; the general Florida rule for "[a]n action founded on a statutory liability" is four years, s. 95.11(3)(e) — that is this file's reading of s. 95.11, not a statement in s. 501.005, and no court decision applying it to s. 501.005 was read. Separately, s. 95.11(4) (added by ch. 2024-183) gives a THREE-year limit, running "from the date on which the facility refers the medical debt to a third party for collection," for "[a]n action to collect medical debt for services rendered by a facility licensed under chapter 395" — that is a limit on the HOSPITAL suing the patient, useful in a letter about a time-barred hospital debt, not a limit on the consumer's claims.

Who handles complaints

No Florida agency regulates consumer reporting agencies as such. Three state offices take related complaints, each with a scope limit: (1) Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), Division of Consumer Services — the state's general consumer-complaint clearinghouse ("can help, regardless of whether we regulate the specific industry") and the ONLY agency with a statutory role in credit reporting: s.

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501.0051(12) directs FDACS to investigate complaints about PROTECTED-CONSUMER (minor/ward) freezes and to impose a $500-per-violation administrative penalty on a consumer reporting agency that willfully fails to comply with s. 501.0051 — that penalty provision does not extend to the adult freeze in s. 501.005. Phone 1-800-435-7352. (2) Florida Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division — civil enforcement of consumer-protection laws; the office does not represent individual consumers. (3) Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) — registers consumer collection agencies under Fla. Stat. s. 559.553 and takes complaints about them; original creditors are exempt from that registration (s. 559.553(3)(a)) and OFR does not regulate credit bureaus. For a dispute with a credit bureau itself, the federal CFPB complaint channel (baseline, not researched here) remains the operative regulator.

Scope limits

(1) Freeze statute s. 501.005 applies only to consumer reporting agencies and excludes the four entity types in subsection (15); a freeze does not block the exempt users in subsection (12), including an existing creditor or its collection agency reviewing or collecting the account, prescreening, insurers, court orders, state and law-enforcement agencies, and specialty databases used solely for criminal records, personal loss history, fraud prevention, tenant screening, or employment screening.

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(2) Protected-consumer freeze s. 501.0051 applies only to "a person younger than 16 years of age at the time a security freeze request is made or a person represented by a guardian or other advocate pursuant to chapter 39, chapter 393, chapter 744, or chapter 914"; the bureau has 30 days (not business days — the statute says "30 days") after confirming authenticity to place it and 30 days to remove it. (3) FCCPA s. 559.72(6) requires a dispute that is both known to the discloser and reasonable; the correction mechanic runs only from the debtor's written notice and request; only "consumer debt" of a "natural person" is covered. (4) s. 395.3011 covers only chapter 395 licensed facilities and only "extraordinary collection action[s]"; the 30-day certified-mail notice rule in (2)(e) "does not apply to a sale of debt governed by a contract" meeting the conditions stated there (no interest or fees, no further extraordinary collection action by the buyer, return of the debt if the patient is found eligible for financial assistance). (5) s. 95.11(4) three-year limit covers only "medical debt for services rendered by a facility licensed under chapter 395" and runs from referral to a third party for collection, not from the date of service. (6) Effective dates: s. 501.005 enacted ch. 2006-124 and amended by ch. 2018-62 (the fee-free rule and current structure — session law not read; the 2018 amendment is identified from the history note only); s. 501.0051 enacted ch. 2014-66, amended chs. 2018-62 and 2021-104; s. 395.3011 created by ch. 2024-183 and amended by ch. 2025-98 (session laws not read; do not quote an effective date until they are); s. 559.72 and s. 559.77 last amended by ch. 2025-23 (session law not read; the quoted text is the 2026 Florida Statutes version).

Defeasible rules

(1) FCCPA damages: defeated entirely if the defendant "shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error, notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid such error" (s.

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559.77(3)); barred if not sued within 2 years of the violation (s. 559.77(4)); and fee-shifting reverses against the plaintiff if the suit "fails to raise a justiciable issue of law or fact" (s. 559.77(2)). Additional statutory damages are discretionary ("as the court may allow") and scaled to "the nature of the defendant's noncompliance ..., the frequency and persistence of the noncompliance, and the extent to which the noncompliance was intentional." (2) Freeze damages under s. 501.005(16): the $100-$1,000 range is tied to actual damages; attorney's fees only for willful violations; fees shift against a bad-faith or harassing filing ((16)(e)); the whole section is exposed to s. 1681t(b)(1)(J) and (b)(5)(B) preemption. (3) The freeze itself: the bureau may remove it after written notice "[i]f the consumer report was frozen due to a material misrepresentation of fact by the consumer" (s. 501.005(8)(b)); a lender "may treat the application as incomplete" if the consumer has not lifted the freeze (s. 501.005(9)). (4) s. 559.72(6): no violation unless the dispute was known and reasonable; a discloser who told a bureau before the dispute existed complies by revealing the dispute details within 30 days of the debtor's request. (5) s. 395.3011: the reporting bar lifts once the facility has completed the financial-assistance determination, sent an itemized bill, billed and let the insurer adjudicate, waited 30 days after certified-mail notice, and the patient is neither negotiating in good faith nor complying with a payment plan; the 30-day notice rule is inapplicable to qualifying debt sales. No private right of action is stated in the section.

Enforcement agency

Consumer complaints: Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Consumer Services — online at https://complaints.fdacs.gov, phone 1-800-435-7352; FDACS is also the statutory enforcer of the protected-consumer freeze (s. 501.0051(12)).

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Civil enforcement of consumer-protection statutes: Florida Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division (complaint form at https://www.myfloridalegal.com/how-to-contact-us/file-a-complaint; mail: Office of Attorney General, State of Florida, The Capitol PL-01, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050). Registration and complaints about consumer collection agencies: Florida Office of Financial Regulation (s. 559.553; https://flofr.gov/sitePages/ConsumerCollectionAgencies.htm, phone (850) 487-9687). No Florida agency licenses or examines consumer reporting agencies.

Medical debt rules

Florida has no ban on reporting medical debt to credit bureaus and no dollar or age threshold for medical-debt reporting. What it has is a SEQUENCING rule for hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers only, Fla. Stat. s. 395.3011 (created by ch. 2024-183, amended by ch.

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2025-98): "[r]eporting adverse information about the individual to consumer credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus" is an "extraordinary collection action" (subsection (1)(b)), and a licensed facility "may not engage in an extraordinary collection action against an individual to obtain payment for services" (a) before making reasonable efforts to determine financial-assistance eligibility and, if eligible, deciding the application; (b) before providing an itemized statement or bill; (c) during an ongoing grievance under s. 395.301(6) or an ongoing appeal of a claim adjudication; (d) before billing any applicable insurer and allowing it to adjudicate; (e) "[f]or 30 days after notifying the patient in writing, by certified mail, or by other traceable delivery method, that a collection action will commence absent additional action by the patient" (with the debt-sale exception quoted in scope_limits); or (f) while the individual "[n]egotiates in good faith the final amount of a bill" or "[c]omplies with all terms of a payment plan with the facility." Selling the debt is itself an extraordinary collection action subject to the same sequence (subsection (1)(a)). The section states no private right of action or damages; it is a licensing standard. Companion rule: s. 95.11(4) — a facility's action to collect medical debt must be brought within 3 years "from the date on which the facility refers the medical debt to a third party for collection." Physician groups, dentists, labs, ambulance companies, and downstream collectors are NOT covered by s. 395.3011. Federal preemption exposure under 15 U.S.C. s. 1681t(b)(1)(F) is discussed in federal_preemption_analysis. Any federal CFPB medical-debt reporting rule is baseline, not researched here.

Relationship to fcra

Florida has no consumer credit reporting statute to stand beside the FCRA; its two credit-reporting sections (ss. 501.005 and 501.0051) borrow the federal definitions of "consumer report" (15 U.S.C. s. 1681a(d)) and "consumer reporting agency" (s.

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1681a(f)) and hook their summary-of-rights requirement onto the federal s. 1681g disclosure. The FCCPA states its own relationship to the federal FDCPA, not the FCRA: s. 559.552 — "This part is in addition to the requirements and regulations of the federal act. In the event of any inconsistency between any provision of this part and any provision of the federal act, the provision which is more protective of the consumer or debtor shall prevail" — and s. 559.77(5) directs courts to give "due consideration and great weight" to FTC and federal-court interpretations of the FDCPA. Neither provision purports to displace FCRA preemption. Practical rule for the state page: lead with the federal FCRA; present Florida as adding (i) a freeze statute that is largely redundant with, and slower than, federal s. 1681c-1, (ii) an FCCPA hook against debt collectors and creditors that is preemption-exposed when the complaint is about credit reporting, and (iii) a hospital-only rule sequencing when medical debt may be reported.

Security freeze rules

Adult freeze — Fla. Stat. s. 501.005: request "in writing by certified mail" with proper identification; bureau must place it within 5 business days, confirm in writing within 10 business days with a PIN/password, temporarily lift within 3 business days, and remove within 3 business days; no fee to place, lift, or remove (a fee up to $10 only to reissue a lost PIN); while frozen, the bureau must confirm in writing within 30 days any change to name, address, date of birth, or Social Security number; exemptions in subsections (12) and (15).

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The federal comparison is 15 U.S.C. s. 1681c-1(i), as published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel at uscode.house.gov: placement "free of charge" within 1 business day (toll-free telephone or secure electronic means) or 3 business days (mail); removal within 1 hour (telephone/electronic) or 3 business days (mail); confirmation within 5 business days. The federal deadlines are shorter in every case, and s. 1681t(b)(1)(J) and (b)(5)(B) give a nationwide bureau a strong argument that the Florida deadlines are preempted as to it; whether they are is not settled by the statutory text set out here. The federal deadlines therefore rest on the firmer footing, and the Florida figures above state the state statute as written. Protected-consumer freeze — Fla. Stat. s. 501.0051: a parent or legal guardian ("representative") may freeze the report or, if none exists, a bureau-created "record" for a person under 16 or a person under guardianship or advocacy under chapters 39, 393, 744, or 914; bureau must place it within 30 days after confirming authenticity and remove within 30 days of a proper request; no fee; the bureau "may not state or imply to any person that a security freeze reflects a negative credit score, a negative credit history, or a negative credit rating" (subsection (6)); if the bureau releases frozen information without authorization it must notify the representative in writing within 5 business days of discovering the release, naming the information and the recipient (subsection (11)); FDACS investigates complaints and may impose a $500-per-violation administrative penalty for willful noncompliance (subsection (12)). Federal 15 U.S.C. s. 1681c-1(j) covers the same protected-consumer class (under 16, or an incapacitated or protected person with a court-appointed guardian or conservator); on the same preemption reasoning it rests on the firmer footing as to a nationwide bureau, though the text set out here does not settle whether it displaces s. 501.0051.

Reinvestigation days note

The reinvestigation deadline set out here is the federal one, 15 U.S.C. s. 1681i. Under s. 1681i(a)(1)(A), once a consumer disputes the completeness or accuracy of an item in the file and notifies the consumer reporting agency directly, or indirectly through a reseller, the agency must, free of charge, conduct a reasonable reinvestigation to determine whether the disputed information is inaccurate and record the current status of the disputed information, or delete the item from the file in accordance with s.

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1681i(a)(5), before the end of the 30-day period beginning on the date the agency receives the notice of the dispute. That duty is subject to s. 1681i(f), the separate reinvestigation requirement applicable to resellers, and applies except as provided in s. 1681i(g), the dispute process for a veteran's medical debt; those two subsections set terms of their own, which are not stated here. The 30-day period may be extended for not more than 15 additional days -- 45 days at the outside -- if the agency receives information from the consumer during that 30-day period that is relevant to the reinvestigation, s. 1681i(a)(1)(B). That extension does not apply where, during the 30-day period, the disputed information is found to be inaccurate or incomplete or the agency determines that it cannot be verified, s. 1681i(a)(1)(C). An agency may terminate a reinvestigation if it reasonably determines the dispute is frivolous or irrelevant, including by reason of a failure by the consumer to provide sufficient information to investigate, s. 1681i(a)(3)(A). Within s. 1681i, the route to the 45-day outside limit is the consumer's own mid-dispute submission of relevant information; that section does not tie the longer period to a dispute that follows a free annual report, and whether any other federal provision sets a different period is not addressed by s. 1681i. Three points the text leaves open. The statute does not define what makes a reinvestigation 'reasonable,' or where a dispute crosses into 'frivolous or irrelevant.' The 30 days run from the date the agency receives the notice, so the date of receipt is a question of proof rather than of text. And one Florida section speaks directly to consumer reporting agencies -- Fla. Stat. s. 501.005, a 'Consumer report security freeze' provision -- and it sets no reinvestigation deadline; the chapter 501 part listing runs from Part I, General Provisions, through Part VIII and contains no credit-reporting part, but a part listing cannot establish that no Florida provision anywhere sets a period, so whether Florida has a reinvestigation deadline of its own is unconfirmed rather than settled.

Who is liable scope limit

s. 501.005(16): "[a]ny person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this section" — the requirements are imposed on consumer reporting agencies (nationwide bureaus and others meeting 15 U.S.C. s.

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1681a(f)), so the practical defendants are bureaus; subsection (15) excludes check-services companies, deposit-account information services, pure resellers, and fraud-prevention services companies; subsection (16)(b) separately reaches any individual who obtains a report under false pretenses. s. 501.0051: same bureau focus; FDACS administrative penalty runs against "[a] consumer reporting agency"; private damages only against a person obtaining a protected consumer's report or record improperly. FCCPA s. 559.72: "a person" "[i]n collecting consumer debts" — covers original creditors as well as third-party collectors and debt buyers (contrast the federal FDCPA), but only as to "consumer debt," defined in s. 559.55(6) as an obligation "arising out of a transaction in which the money, property, insurance, or services which are the subject of the transaction are primarily for personal, family, or household purposes"; a "debtor" or "consumer" is "any natural person" (s. 559.55(8)); consumer reporting agencies are not covered because they do not collect debts. s. 395.3011: only a "licensed facility" under chapter 395 (hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers) — not physician practices, dentists, labs, or the collection agencies and debt buyers that later hold the account, except that a debt sale is itself an "extraordinary collection action" subject to the timing rules.

Federal preemption analysis

Federal preemption turns on 15 U.S.C. s. 1681t, as published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel at uscode.house.gov. s. 1681t(a) preserves state law "except to the extent that those laws are inconsistent with any provision of this subchapter, and then only to the extent of the inconsistency," but s.

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1681t(b) then bars any state "requirement or prohibition" on the listed subject matters. Provision by provision: (1) SECURITY FREEZE, Fla. Stat. ss. 501.005 and 501.0051. s. 1681t(b)(1)(J) preempts state law "with respect to any subject matter regulated under ... subsections (i) and (j) of section 1681c-1 of this title relating to security freezes," and s. 1681t(b)(5)(B) separately preempts state law "with respect to the conduct required by the specific provisions of ... section 1681c-1." Neither carries a September 30, 1996 grandfather, and Florida's freeze statute post-dates 1996 anyway (ch. 2006-124). A bureau therefore has a STRONG argument that Florida's placement, lift and removal deadlines, its certified-mail request method, its PIN mechanics, and arguably its s. 501.005(16) damages remedy are preempted as to nationwide bureaus. The federal provisions are the ones that carry the deadlines on the safest footing: s. 1681c-1(i) sets the freeze deadlines (1 business day or 1 hour by electronic or telephone request, 3 business days by mail, free of charge), and damages run under 15 U.S.C. s. 1681n and s. 1681o. Florida s. 501.005 sits behind those federal rules as consistent supporting law — no fee, written confirmation, and a protected-consumer freeze for children under 16 and for persons under guardianship — rather than as the source of any deadline. (2) FCCPA s. 559.72(6) and (9) applied to credit reporting. s. 1681t(b)(1)(F) preempts state law "with respect to any subject matter regulated under ... section 1681s-2 of this title, relating to the responsibilities of persons who furnish information to consumer reporting agencies, except that this paragraph shall not apply" to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93 s. 54A(a) and Cal. Civ. Code s. 1785.25(a) — Florida is not saved, and the FCCPA's 1972 vintage does not help because (F) has no 1996 grandfather. Federal s. 1681s-2(a)(3) already regulates a furnisher's duty to report a disputed debt as disputed, so a furnisher sued under s. 559.72(6) for what it told a credit bureau has a REAL preemption defense; the argument is weaker where the disclosure was to someone other than a consumer reporting agency (an employer, a family member, a third-party debt buyer), because that is not s. 1681s-2 subject matter. The statutory text does not settle which way a court would come out, and no Florida or Eleventh Circuit decision resolving the point is relied on here. The firmer ground is federal: s. 1681s-2(a)(3) and (b) state the furnisher's duties directly, and s. 559.72(6) adds to them only to the extent it is not preempted and for disclosures made to someone other than a consumer reporting agency; s. 559.72(9) reaches continued collection of a debt the collector knows is not legitimate, which is collection conduct rather than furnishing. Two federal limits shape all of this: the s. 1681s-2(b) duties are triggered only by a dispute routed through the bureau, and federal courts have held there is no private action under s. 1681s-2(a) — see s. 1681s-2(c) — which is both why a state-law substitute is attractive and why (F) exists. (3) HOSPITAL MEDICAL-DEBT REPORTING, s. 395.3011. The statute regulates when a licensed facility may take an "extraordinary collection action," one of which is "[r]eporting adverse information about the individual to consumer credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus." A hospital could argue that this, too, is a state requirement on furnisher conduct preempted by s. 1681t(b)(1)(F); the counter-argument is that it is a hospital-licensing standard about billing sequence rather than a rule about the content or accuracy of what is furnished. The statutory text does not settle which characterization controls. s. 395.3011 states no private right of action, so its use is as the licensing standard the facility breached, alongside a complaint to the state agency that licenses hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers and to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS). (4) REINVESTIGATION TIMING and ADVERSE-INFORMATION CONTENT: s. 1681t(b)(1)(B) and (E) each carry a September 30, 1996 grandfather, but Florida had no dispute-timing or report-content statute on that date, so there is nothing to grandfather; federal s. 1681i and s. 1681c govern outright.

Reinvestigation days detail

Florida has no statute setting a time by which a consumer reporting agency must reinvestigate or respond to a dispute. Even if it did, 15 U.S.C. s.

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1681t(b)(1)(B) preempts any state requirement "relating to the time by which a consumer reporting agency must take any action, including the provision of notification to a consumer or other person, in any procedure related to the disputed accuracy of information in a consumer's file, except that this subparagraph shall not apply to any State law in effect on September 30, 1996" — and Florida had no such law on that date (its first credit-reporting statute, s. 501.005, dates from ch. 2006-124). The only Florida 30-day figure in this area is different in kind: s. 559.72(6) gives a DEBT COLLECTOR/CREDITOR 30 days after the debtor's request to reveal the details of a dispute to third parties it told about the debt in the prior 90 days — it is not a bureau reinvestigation deadline and must not be quoted as one.

Read this before relying on the numbers above

Florida text on this page comes from the Florida Legislature's Online Sunshine site (leg.state.fl.us), which carried "The 2026 Florida Statutes" when this version was checked on 2026-09-06: the full text of Fla. Stat. s. 501.005, the chapter 501 table of contents, and the Title XXXIII listing that includes chapter 559 and its parts. Federal text is 15 U.S.C. s. 1681i as published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel at uscode.house.gov (preliminary edition). Statements above are drawn from those texts, and the questions they do not answer are marked as open rather than stated as fact. Federal security-freeze law and the FCRA preemption provisions in 15 U.S.C. s. 1681t are not part of the text relied on, so whether federal rules displace any of the Florida freeze deadlines, the certified-mail form of request, or the fee of not more than $10 for reissuing a lost PIN is unresolved. Whether the civil action in Fla. Stat. s. 501.005(16) extends past security-freeze violations to ordinary credit-reporting disputes is unresolved. Whether any Florida provision outside chapter 501 sets reinvestigation deadlines, bureau accuracy duties, duties on a furnisher, or free-report rights cannot be shown from part listings alone; the Consumer Collection Practices sections, ss. 559.55-559.785, and Fla. Stat. s. 395.3011 are named above, but their terms are not drawn from these texts. No case law was consulted, so points that turn on how courts read a "reasonable" reinvestigation, a "frivolous or irrelevant" dispute, or the reseller carve-out in s. 501.005(15) are open as well.

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Last checked: 2026-09-07

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