I am not the kind of person who will at the drop of the hat threaten to sue. However in this case I feel the abuse I have suffered from Equifax should not go unpunished. I had not seen a copy of my credit report since 1998 when I purchased my home until December when I decided to buy a car. 10.75% interest?! I KNEW my credit did not warrant such a high interest rate so I began my education in credit reporting. Evidently Equifax had been reporting 2 public record judgements for God knows how long. There were indeed 2 court cases filed against me however the cases were dismissed. I was involved in two real estate deals with a very dishonorable establishment who will remain nameless. They breached both property deals and knew I was about to sue their butts off. Well they beat me to the courthouse and filed these frivolous suits against me to try their best to get the properties back so their dirty deeds could not be exposed (so they thought anyway), These were investor owned properties that I purchased legally through Land Installment Contracts. I wanted to sell a property I already had before I went to the bank to get the financing for these properties. One would be my home and the other a rental. My other property sold in 3 months so three months later I went to the bank and applied for the loans to pay off the land contracts....no problem. Got the loans and everything was okay up to the point the title search was done. Well come to find out these jerks had been borrowing money off investors all over town and there were private mortgages on these properties in excess of 300,000.00. I purchased both of them for 160,000.00. Per contract they swore to the fact that no outstanding mortgages were in excess of my purchase price. They had to now cough up 300,000.00 in a matter of two weeks in order to transfer clear title. Want to know what these crooks did? They tried to file EVICTIONS on me! Evictions can you believe that?! They had to find a way to stall the closing by mucking me around with these lawsuits until they got their private mortgage investors paid off. They had the court serve me at the property I did not live at hoping for a default judgement well I found out about it anyway and needless to say their court cases went NO WHERE.....They were 100% dismissed. BUT thanks to EQUIFAX they took it upon themselves to list two eviction suits on my credit report and my husbands report. When I found this out in December I was crushed...crushed until I started digging around and found this site among others. I disputed both as never having gone to judgement and the cases were dismissed. One came back verified..unchanged the other came back with a satisfaction date! A satisfied dismissed judgement???!!! What the hell? So I call and got the royal run around. They insisted they verified directly with the court and I told her she was telling a bold faced lie. I immediately whipped out a letter to Mr. Chapman their CEO. No response. Called them again and was told the items were being deleted she read the file comment which said "EQUIFAX does NOT report evictions. Delete immediately" They should have never been reported to begin with per their own policy! I received a letter today from Mr. Chapmans office apologizing for my "inconvenience" and a corrected CR. Now this brings me to my question....I feel so damned violated it isn't funny. I have been stigmatised by this bogus crap on my report for how long now?! I am so mad and humiliated (even though I have no reason to feel humiliated) that I am beside myself. I honestly feel that I was/am the victim of their obvious neglect and disregard. I know this has been a long and windy post and I apologize but any constructive opinion would be greatly appreciated. I do intend to speak to an attorney but I also wanted/NEEDED to vent and get some feedback here.
You may want to look at a case called TRW vs Adeliade Andrews and see if you are in the timeline the Supreme Court established for bringing suit.
Well, to be honest I didn't read your post very closely, but the bottom line would be whether or not you had damages, and whether or not Equifax was reasonable in their procedures. They did end up deleting...so a lot will depend on whether or not you have the damages and whether or not they were incurred during the time they were playing their games with you. L
Whyspers is exactly right. The best cases are those where you can prove you have damages and prove that their negligence in reporting and not correcting caused the damages. Did you apply for any credit or employment during this whole debacle? If so, where you denied? Did you save credit reports/scores from during and after this episode?
Another thing that concerns me is that it appears you just found out about this situation sometime in December...two months ago? If that is the case, and they have already deleted, I really think you will have a hard time proving any negligence on the part of Equifax. I mean, heck...I think a lot of people would LOVE to be able to get an error corrected in that short of a period of time. I know its frustrating and you want to strike back, but sometimes its best to just let it go and be thankful for the little things L
Had it been a simple mistake that needed correction I would agree with you...however Equifax, per their own policy, and by their own admission, should have never reported this to begin with. So why did they?! Negligence has already been proved by their carelessness in not assuring maximum accuracy. Continued negligence was futher proved by their "verification" that they were reporting accurate information. They insisted judgements were filed and I satisfied one of them....I had to PROVE them wrong by getting certified copies from my court house which clearly showed there were never judgements entered in either case. This alone is proof they did not verify...this is proof they lied. I can easily prove financial damages, defamation etc., My primary concern is that they are doing this to how many others out there?! How many others are being victimized by their lazy, inept, and totally careless staff?! I had to go to the TOP to even get their attention and I have the CEO's letter of apology in my hand. The 2 months it took to get it deleted is not the issue...it's the years it sat on there when it should never have been reported to begin with.
The years it sat there will be your problem. Do a "google search" for the case I mentioned earlier. You have 2 years from when a liability is first listed to sue for damages.
Re: Re: Grounds to sue Equifax? Unfortunately, you were one of the millions of people who do not take care of their credit health on an annual basis. I always reccommend an annual check up with all 3 credit bureaus,scheduled along with your annual physical dental and eye check ups. You are very fortunate that your "credit injury" was so easily repaired. You could have been the victim of identity fraud and spend the next several years getting it straightened out. In point of fact, it was the person who entered the injurious information into the system who is culpable, you certainly can bring a slander of credit lawsuit against him. By the way, are you SURE an actul dismissal WAS entered in the Court system,the fact that the suit was dropped does not mean it had a FILED dismissal. You should also check the 2 other CRAs' to make sure it wasn't picked up in their data retrieval.
Re: Re: Grounds to sue Equifax? I don't want to sound like I am sticking up for Equifax, because god knows I hate them too! But....Your suit is baseless against Equifax IMO. I don't think it would get anywhere since they did in the end do the right thing. They are a compiler of information and as a consumer when we are aware of incorrect information and let the CRA know about it, it is then the CRA's duty to investigate and correct such or delete it. If they did their investigation and found it was inaccurate and deleted it then you really have no grounds for suit. Maybe against the furnisher "Yes" but not the CRA. Since you claimed to have just got your credit report several months ago, you did the right thing and disputing the incorrect info. I advise everyone to check their credit at the very least every 3 months, for me it is monthly! Tac
Re: Re: Grounds to sue Equifax? I don't really agree with keepmine (gasp) in this instance, as it is my opinion that each time a CR is pulled by a potential creditor and the erroneous information is seen by someone other than the consumer, it starts a new SOL. But that's neither here nor there. You say: The problem here is that you are saying they became liable when they first listed the incorrect information. Unfortunately, they do not incur liability simply by reporting incorrect information IF the consumer has not challenged that incorrect information. At that time...when they receive notice from the consumer that they are reporting incorrect information, that is when the burden starts to shift to them having to assure maximum possible accuracy. They have absolutely no obligation whatsoever in the initial reporting, IMHO. The courts have in the past agreed that it would be too cumbersome for the CRAs to have an initial responsiblity in ensuring accuracy and that is supposedly why there are protections in place allowing the consumer to dispute incorrect information. You can sue if you want to...we all have a right to file a lawsuit, whether or not the case has merit. L
Re: Re: Grounds to sue Equifax? "They have absolutely no obligation whatsoever in the initial reporting, IMHO." This is a common misconception and if it were true then the consumer would be the true enforcement for accurate credit reporting. It's not the consumers responsibility to ensure accuracy. That responsibility is clearly pointed out in the FCRA. The consumer is responsible to do something about it when he/she discovers there is an error. Which I did. Not getting my report and looking at it for 5 years is not waiving my rights to fair and accurate personal information being gathered and distributed about me. Had I known about it 5 years ago and waited until now to do something about it then that would be different. Well, thanks everyone for your responses...I appreciate it. I have an appointment with my attorney tomorrow...perhaps he will have some enlightening news that may be helpful to someone else...if so I will post here.
Re: Re: Re: Grounds to sue Equifax? There is quite a lot of caselaw to back this up, but you could be right. Good luck with the attorney! Please keep us posted on how the case is going. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. L
