resolution process and enhance the accuracy of items on reports. These policy changes will be implemented in a three-phrased rollout, culminating by June 2018. Subsequently, these CRAs entered into a cooperative agreement with 31 State Attorneys General, which was the basis of the creation of the National Consumer Assistance Plan ( NCAP ) to change some of their business practices. (J) While the CRAs appear to be voluntarily adopting policy changes on a nationwide basis, they are not obligated to do so for consumers who reside in States that are not party to any of the consent orders. (K) As a result of the settlement agreements, the three nationwide CRAs will set a 180-day waiting period before including medical collections on a report and will remove a medical collection from a report once it is paid by an insurance company. While this change will benefit many, once a medical collection appears on a report, it will only be deleted or suppressed if it is found to have been the insurance company’s obligation to pay and the insurer pays it. Given the research showing there is little predictive value in medical debt information, medical collections that are paid or settled should quickly be removed from a report, regardless of who pays or settles this debt. (8) Financial abuse by known persons (A) Financial abuse and exploitation are frequently associated with domestic violence. This type of abuse may result in fraudulent charges to a credit card or having fraudulent accounts created by the abuser in the survivor’s name. Financial abuse may also result in the survivor’s inability to make timely payments on their valid obligations due to loss or changes in income that can occur when their abuser steals from or coerces the survivor to relinquish their paychecks or savings. (B) By racking up substantial debts in the survivor’s name, abusers are able to exercise financial control over their survivors to make it economically difficult for the survivor, whose credit is often destroyed, to escape the situation. (C)