Jury Awards $2.9 million for credit report violations
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a federal law which is supposed to regulate the credit reporting industry. The FCRA is supposed to keep control over users of reports and the furnishers of the information provided. For many Americans, their credit history can mean the difference between paying hundreds or thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest over their lives. In my opinion, the average American does not even know what is contained in their credit files until they apply for credit, and by then, it is probably too late to do any meaningful repair work.
Angela Williams filed a lawsuit against Equifax due to an ongoing dispute over her credit file. It seems that Equifax was mixing the credit files of Ms. Williams and another person with a similar name and social security number. Ms. Williams first discovered the dispute in 1994, and she filed a lawsuit in 2003 alleging violations of the FCRA. The jury sent a message to Equifax, and that message is simple: A person's credit rating is very important and when you are entrusted to protect personal information and then you act carelessly and in reckless disregard of that information, you will be sanctioned.
Here, Justice was served. Angela Williams had her day in Court and she was victorious. The FCRA's purpose is to require CRAs to adopt reasonable procedures ... which is fair and equitable to the consumer. Here, Equifax was held accountable for using unreasonable procedures. For a more indepth analysis of this case, please go to: http://www.creditlawnetwork.com which I write for as well.
