Adverse Action

It's basically just what it sounds like: a fancy term for things going wrong.

Adverse actions catalogue the times when the world's big bureaucracies - the government, financial institutions, corporate entities - turn against you. They're an official record of your bad days.

Adverse actions come up frequently in the contexts of credit checks and employment. You know how in school, vice principals were always threatening to put things on your permanent record? Adverse actions are kind of like that. They are notices that come up when people do certain checks, like when a lender looks at your credit report, or when an employer does a background check before hiring you.