Metro 2 explained: the rules lenders must follow when they report you

What Metro 2 is

Metro 2 is the standard data format lenders use to report consumer accounts to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. It is maintained by the Consumer Data Industry Association, the credit reporting industry's trade group, and spelled out in a manual called the Credit Reporting Resource Guide.

Every month or so, each lender sends the bureaus a file with one Metro 2 record for every account it reports. Your credit report is built from those records. Every credit card, auto loan, mortgage, student loan and collection account on it started life as a set of Metro 2 fields.

Metro 2 is an industry standard, not a statute. What gives it teeth is the Fair Credit Reporting Act. A lender may not report information it knows or has reasonable cause to believe is inaccurate (FCRA §623(a)(1)), and it must correct and update information it finds to be incomplete or inaccurate (FCRA §623(a)(2)). The bureaus, in turn, must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy (FCRA §607(b)). Metro 2 is the yardstick that accuracy is measured against, field by field.

The fields that matter most

A Metro 2 record has dozens of fields. These are the ones that shape your report:

• Account status. Where the account stands right now: current, 30, 60, 90 or more days late, paid, closed, charged off, in collection.
• Payment rating. For an account that is paid, closed or transferred, whether it was current or how far behind it was at that point.
• Current balance. What is owed as of the reporting date.
• Amount past due. How much of that balance is overdue.
• Scheduled monthly payment. The payment the terms of the account require.
• Date of first delinquency. When the account first went late and never caught up. Lenders must report it for accounts placed for collection or charged off (FCRA §623(a)(5)), and it sets how long most negative items may stay: generally seven years, measured from 180 days after that delinquency began (FCRA §605(c)).
• Payment history. Up to 24 months, one mark per month: on time, 30 days late, 60, 90, and so on.
• Key dates. Date opened, date closed, date of last payment, and the date the information was reported.

On your report these appear under plain labels, arranged differently at each bureau. How to read your credit report walks through where each one sits.

Why the fields have to agree

All of these fields describe the same account on the same date. They are not separate opinions. They are one picture, and every piece of it has to fit.

An account can't be current and past due at the same time. It can't be charged off after a spotless payment record. It can't be late on a payment of zero. When two fields in the same record contradict each other, both cannot be true, and at least one of them is wrong.

That is what makes a Metro 2 contradiction so useful. You don't need the lender's internal files to prove the reporting isn't accurate as it stands. The proof is printed on the report itself.

Five contradictions worth knowing

Each of these is one of the many loopholes hiding in ordinary credit reports. Each one is a specific, checkable problem a lender has to answer for.

1. "Current" with an amount past due

The status says the account is current. The amount past due says money is overdue. Those two fields cannot both be right. Either the account is behind, or the past-due amount is wrong.

2. A charge-off with no late months before it

Lenders charge off an account after a long run of missed payments. For credit cards that is typically around six months. A charge-off whose payment history shows every month on time right up to the charge-off is telling two different stories. The history and the status can't both be accurate.

3. Paid-as-agreed months after a charge-off

Once an account is charged off, it does not go back to being current. If the payment history shows on-time months after the charge-off date, the account is being described as both written off and paid as agreed at the same time.

4. A $0 scheduled payment on a late, open account

An open account reported as late means a payment was due and missed. A scheduled payment of $0 says nothing was due. If nothing was due, nothing could be late. One of those fields is wrong.

5. The same account, reported differently by two bureaus

One lender, one account, one set of records. Some differences between bureaus are only timing, such as a balance reported a few weeks apart. Others can't be explained that way: a different date of first delinquency, a late month at one bureau that is on time at another, a status of charged off here and current there. Those versions can't all be accurate.

These five are a start, not the full list. There are many more: dates that move, balances that don't add up, past-due amounts larger than the balance, accounts reported as paid that still carry a balance. Every one of them follows the same logic. The record disagrees with itself.

What a contradiction does in a dispute

When a bureau forwards your dispute, it goes to the lender through e-OSCAR as a short coded form. A vague complaint becomes a vague code, and the lender answers it by confirming its records match what it reported. They almost always do, because the report came from those records.

A Metro 2 contradiction changes that. It names a specific field and shows that the lender's own data disagrees with itself. Confirming a match no longer answers the question.

The law spells out the consequence. A lender that receives a dispute from a bureau must investigate and review the information sent to it (FCRA §623(b)). Information that is inaccurate, incomplete or cannot be verified must be modified, deleted or permanently blocked (FCRA §623(b)(1)(E)), and the bureau has the same duty on its side (FCRA §611(a)(5)(A)). What changes depends on what the lender finds. What cannot stand is a record that contradicts itself.

If a dispute has already come back verified, a contradiction the first letter never mentioned is exactly the kind of new, specific argument that belongs in the next round. See why your dispute came back verified.

Why this is so hard to do by hand

Consumer reports don't show Metro 2 field names. They show translated labels, arranged differently by each bureau. Checking a single account means lining up its status, balance, past-due amount, scheduled payment, dates and payment history, then comparing all of it against the same account at the other two bureaus.

Now do the arithmetic. Twenty accounts across three reports is 1,440 months of payment history alone, before a single balance, date or status is checked. Then every contradiction has to be turned into a dispute that names the right field, sent to the right place, tracked against a 30-day clock, and followed by the next round when the results come back.

Credit Repair Automate is software built to do exactly that. It reads every account on all three of your reports, runs these checks and many more, catches the bureaus that disagree with each other, and writes each dispute around the specific field that is wrong. It tracks every deadline, reads your next report for results, and plans the next round. You review and sign every letter.

Create your account and see what the scan finds on your reports. What it costs is on the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions