It's Been An Expensive Few Years For The Credit Bureaus

Two fairly significant class action lawsuits were settled this year and last between TransUnion, Experian, Equifax and millions of consumer plaintiffs.

The first is the "TransUnion Privacy" lawsuit. TransUnion was accused of selling lists containing personal and financial consumer information to third parties for marketing purposes not in accordance with the FCRA and agreed to a $75,000,000 settlement. I believe this is the largest FCRA settlement amount ever.  The settlement has been approved and all objections to the settlement have been overruled. 

The second is the "White/Hernandez" case.  All three credit reporting agencies were accused of not properly updating debts that were discharged in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. After years of litigation, the parties agreed on a $45,000,000 settlement, which will be divided and paid equally by the three credit bureaus. I believe this is the second largest FCRA settlement ever. And while the settlement amount has been agreed upon, this one isn't a done deal yet. There is a final fairness hearing in San Francisco in early January 2010, and there will likely be objectors to the terms of the settlement. Stay tuned about this one. 

Links to each of the settlement administrator websites where you can learn more about each of the lawsuits and review the actual court documents:

https://www.listclassaction.com/ and http://www.bankruptcydischargesettlement.com/index.php3

John Ulzheimer – Credit scoring and credit reporting expert and author, John is the President of Consumer Education for Credit.com. Formerly with Equifax and Fair Isaac, John shares his unique insight of the inner workings of credit scoring models and the credit reporting industry on CreditBloggers.com.

Comments

[John]

I've been registered for a while, it's about time!