Fair Credit Reporting Act
Are you having problems with false information on your credit reports? If someone has reported inaccurate information on your credit report and you’ve disputed it with the credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, Transunion), you may have a claim against them if they don’t conduct a proper investigation. And our firm may be able to help.
We’re lawyers who work to protect consumers against abusive business practices. And ruining someone’s credit over incorrect information can cause havoc with a person’s life. A low credit score means you pay more for loans, pay more for your car, or can’t even find a place to rent. And lots of businesses aren’t careful at all about what they report. If your identity gets stolen, or someone makes a mistake, often they don’t even care—and they won’t do anything to take it off your credit report and fix your score.
We use a law called the Fair Credit Reporting Act to protect our clients—and we don’t charge you unless we win. The FCRA lets consumers sue under certain circumstances if they’re victims of false information on their credit report. If you file a dispute with the credit agencies and they still won’t correct it, you may have the right to sue. The FCRA lets consumers recover their damages, and even if you haven’t had any, you can recover up to $1,000.
If there’s false information on your credit reports and it’s hurting your score, and disputes with Equifax, Experian, and Transunion have gotten you nowhere, give us a call at 657-845-3100, or e-mail us at contact@kneuppercovey.com. We don’t charge anything to evaluate your case, and we mostly work on contingency, meaning if we take on your case on a contingency basis, we don’t charge a fee unless we win. You shouldn’t have to live with bad credit just because someone else won’t live up to their responsibilities to report the truth. That’s illegal—and we help people stop it.
The FCRA
The FCRA is a law that was passed by the federal government in 1970. It was designed to make sure that the credit reporting agencies were treating people fairly—and to make sure consumers could do something about it if they didn’t.
The key to filing a suit is to dispute the false information with any credit agency that’s reporting it. You’re entitled to a free credit report every year, and you’re entitled to file reports. But sometimes either the credit reporting agencies or the people reporting the false information don’t actually investigate, and that’s when the FCRA comes into play to make sure they do what they should have in the first place.
Lots of situations can result in a claim under the law.
1) Identity Theft.
For example, in a lawsuit in Atlanta, Georgia, a victim of identity theft filed suit under the FCRA against Equifax. Jordan v. Equifax Info. Servs., 410 F. Supp. 2d 1349 (N.D. Ga. 2006). Someone had taken out $17,600 in student loans in his name, and when debt collectors started calling him up, he spent more than a year trying to get the information off his credit report. He filed a police report, sent sworn affidavits to the debt collectors and Equifax, and went around and around and around. Finally he tried applying for a home loan and the mortgage company “informed him that he would have to provide proof that either the loans were not his or that they had been paid off in order for the Homebanc loan to close.”
The court ruled that the plaintiff in that case was entitled to seek damages for emotional distress, “including embarrassment, frustration, anger, anxiety, and humiliation as a result of Defendants’ violations of the FCRA.”
2) Similar Names
In another case in Encinitas, California, the plaintiff found out he had a bankruptcy on his credit reports. Brooks v. Bank of Am., N.A., No. 20-cv-01348-BAS-LL, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75643 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 19, 2021). His bank even suspended a line of credit he’d had because of it. But the bankruptcy was from someone in Alabama—a state he’d never even lived in. His name was William N. Brooks, III—and the bankruptcy was from someone named William E. Brooks. He was able to sue under both the Fair Credit Reporting Act and a similar California state law, the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act.
3) Errors or Mistakes
In a case in Rockwall, Texas, the plaintiff sued when he suddenly got an alert about his credit saying that his Wells Fargo account was 120 days past due. That was impossible because he had a zero balance on the account. He disputed it with TransUnion—and then Wells Fargo went ahead and “verified the past-due report as accurate, causing TransUnion to continue reporting the inaccurate information…” It wasn’t clear how this had happened, but probably it was a mistake—only Wells Fargo allegedly didn’t investigate it when it should have. The court let the FCRA claim go forward.
If you have errors on your credit report, we may be able to help.
All we do at Kneupper & Covey is represent consumers. We’ve helped people with all kinds of problems, and we don’t charge anything to review your case. For the majority of our cases, we work on contingency, which means we only get paid if we win. Call us at 657-845-3100
, or e-mail us at contact@kneuppercovey.com. We’ll get in touch ASAP and let you know if you have a valid claim.