My question is why hasn't anyone sued these credit report companies, credit collectors and businesses that use them. They are attempting to by-pass the legal system of proving wrong doing on defaults through nothing less then defamational Libal. There is nothing to motivate the companies to investigate if they have made an error on their parts and because of that there is an absurd amount of false credit default claims. Why as a consumer are we then responsible for checking and providing proof that we aren't in the wrong. Companies should have to have judgements before they are allowed to submit claims to credit reports. And, not doing so should make all these financial institutions responsible for the inconvience they have enforced on the public by creating their own legal system based upon nothing other then hearsay.
Probably because truth is an absolute defense against defamation. And all a CRA would have to do is say "We *gave* them the chance to fix their own report, but they never bothered to do so". You are right, though -- there is nothing to motivate the companies to investigate. A lawsuit, perhaps, but do you really want to spend all the time and money going to federal court only to have your case thrown out because the CRA says "oops, bona fide error, we'll correct it immediately"?
The FCRA says that providers of information (i.e. creditors) have an obligation to provide accurate information and also to have systems in place that minimize erroneous information and that they have systems for correcting/verifying information. Now, these systems aren't perfect, especially when you figure there are over a billion (with a "B") credit and debit transactions a month and something on the order of 1,000,000,000 credit accounts in the U.S. alone. Expecting something like that to be perfect is not reasonable and with those sorts of numbers, even a .1% error rate (which is pretty amazing) means that there'll be 1,000,000 erroneously reported accounts at any given time. I'm not apologizing for the banks, by any means. Just pointing out the magnitude of the system.
People sue furnishers of information and the credit reporting agenices for defamation all the time. You don't have to rely on the FCRA insofar as it does not pre-empt state law intentional torts. Moreover, your damages aren't capped under tort theories whereas they are under the FCRA.
They also lose all the time because in order to prove a defamation claim one must also prove that the defamation was done as an act with malicious intent. Proving malicious intent against a credit bureau would be an almost impossible feat. Defamation with malicious intent might not be so hard to prove against an individual or a company. I won't mention any names but you and I are both well aware of a case in which it would have appeared to most that the act of defamation was done with malicious intent and was allegedly done as a result of the defendant's desire to interfere with the business practices of the plaintiffs. The plaintiff's could not even prove malicious intent in that case and they lost. Proving malicious intent isn't an easy thing to accomplish.
Cap: I generally agree with you but, not on this point. Malice with respect to preponderating defamation only applies to public figures. The run of the mill Joe Smoe just has to show that the statement was false, published, and was damaged thereby in some respect (unless it is per se). An aside, let's not get in a pissing match because we disagree on this. I respect your opinion and consider you one of the few reasonable people on these boards. Not saying you would piss on me but, you know where I'm coming from given, well, just given . . .
