- Jared Hartman, Esq.
- Posted on November 22, 2013
For two years an Oregon woman tried and tried and tried to ask Equifax to correct the mistakes on her credit report. She discovered in 2009 that information belonging to someone else with the same name was being mixed into her credit report (known as a “mixed credit report”), including the other woman’s birthdate, social security number, negative credit information, among other wrong information. She only discovered the inaccuracies when she was denied a line of credit. The unfortunate woman tried many times to have these mistakes corrected and to have her credit report cleaned up. All credit reporting agencies other than Equifax followed through with their responsibilities. Because Equifax repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly failed to correct their mistakes, they were sued for violations that included 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681i(a)(1)(A) & (a)(5)(A) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
These Sections of the FCRA require the credit reporting agency to conduct a reasonable investigation into a dispute lodged by a consumer within 30 days, and to either delete the information if they fail to conduct the dispute within 30 days, delete the information if they cannot verify its accuracy, or modify the information if they discover the correct information.
Failure to comply with these requirements could result in damages owed to the consumer for any actual damages sustained as compensation for any financial harm or physical or emotional injury arising out of the violation, or statutory damages of $100-$1,000 for every willful violation, and any punitive damages that the court may allow. Also, a successful lawsuit guarantees that the offender will pay your attorney’s fees and costs of litigation, which means you will not have to pay any money in connection with filing the lawsuit.
Because Equifax repeatedly ignored the woman’s efforts to correct her credit report and repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, the jury found them in violation of the FCRA and awarded her $180,000 in actual damages plus $18.4 Million in punitive damages!
Read the news reports at the links below: