FCRA lawsuit against Bank of America for false credit reporting

FCRA lawsuit against Bank of America for false credit reporting

The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) prohibits false credit reporting of any type.  We recently filed a case against Bank of America, Experian, and TransUnion (two of the major credit reporting agencies).

You can read the facts below that were alleged in Federal Court but here is a summary.

Our client was foreclosed on by Bank of America and there was no further debt owed.  Several years after the foreclosure Bank of America starting reporting that our client owed the full amount of the loan even though the loan was paid off years ago in the foreclosure.

So our client disputed this with the credit reporting agencies and after it was not fixed our client decided that federal court would be the right place to go to fix this problem.

If you have questions about the FCRA and your credit reports and you live in Alabama, give us a call at 205-879-2447 or use our contact form and we will be happy to get with you.

COMPLAINT

COMES NOW the Plaintiff, by and through counsel, and for Plaintiff’s Complaint against the Defendants states as follows:

1. This action arises out of Defendants’ repeated violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. [hereinafter “FCRA”] and out of state law violations which all relate to a debt with Bank of America, N.A. that is not owed by Plaintiff.

JURISDICTION

1. Personal jurisdiction exists over Defendants as they have the necessary minimum contacts with the State of Alabama and this suit arises out of their specific conduct with Plaintiff in Alabama.  All the actions described in this suit occurred in Alabama.
2. Subject matter jurisdiction exists under federal question jurisdiction (28 U.S.C. Section 1331) and through diversity jurisdiction (28 U.S.C. Section 1332) as the amount claimed exceeds $75,000.00 between these diverse parties.

VENUE

1. Venue is proper as Plaintiff lives in this judicial district, the events took place in this judicial district, and the Defendants do business in this judicial district.

PARTIES

1. Plaintiff  Christopher R. Hudson (hereinafter “Plaintiff”) is a natural person who is a resident of this judicial district in Alabama.
2. Defendant Bank of America, N.A. (“Defendants” or “BOA[1]“) is a foreign company that furnishes consumer credit information to consumer reporting agencies.  15 U.S.C. §1681s-2.  It is incorporated in Delaware and has its principal place of business in North Carolina.
3. Defendant Trans Union, LLC (“Defendants” or “Trans Union[2]“) is a foreign company that engages in the business of maintaining and reporting consumer credit information.  It is incorporated in Delaware and has its principal place of business in Illinois.
4. Defendant Experian Information Solutions, Inc. (“Defendants” or “Experian[3]“) is a foreign company that engages in the business of maintaining and reporting consumer credit information.  It is incorporated in Ohio and has its principal place of business in California.

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union

Falsely Credit Report the Defendant BOA Account

1. Plaintiff’s home was foreclosed by Defendant BOA[4] and no money was owed after the foreclosure on January 14, 2010.
2. Defendant BOA has recently starting claiming that Plaintiff owes money to Defendant BOA through BOA’s credit reporting on Plaintiff.
3. This is untrue as Plaintiff owes no money to BOA and has not since at least January 2010.
4. Defendant BOA reported and has continued to report to the credit reporting agencies that Plaintiff owes a balance to Defendant BOA and has been late in paying since January 2010.
5. Plaintiff has disputed directly to Defendants Experian, Trans Union and BOA explaining that no debt is owed to Defendant BOA.
6. Defendants Experian, Trans Union, and BOA, however, refused to properly investigate and delete the tradeline or properly update the tradeline on Plaintiff’s credit reports.
7. Defendants Experian, Trans Union, and BOA know this debt is not owed.
8. Plaintiff does not owe this money to Defendant BOA.
9. Defendants were not concerned about and did not care about the fact that the BOA account was falsely reporting on Plaintiff’s credit reports as Defendants did not intend to perform a reasonable investigation.
10. Defendants did not perform any type of reasonable investigation.
11. Defendants Experian and Trans Union notified Defendant BOA in accordance with the FCRA of the dispute by the Plaintiff.
12. Alternatively, Defendants Experian and Trans Union did not properly notify Defendant BOA and, as a part of this failure, did not include all relevant information provided by Plaintiff in their notification of Defendant BOA.
13. Defendants Experian, Trans Union, and BOA failed to properly investigate these disputes as if Defendants had properly investigated, the BOA account would have been deleted.
14. Despite knowing that the BOA account is false, Defendants Experian and Trans Union have completely abdicated their obligations under federal and state law and have instead chosen to merely “parrot” whatever their customer, Defendant BOA, has told them to say.
15. Defendant Trans Union know courts have condemned the practice of “parroting” but yet they continue to do so.
16. Defendants Trans Union and Experian have a policy to favor the paying customer, in this situation Defendant BOA.

Reason for Keeping False Information on Credit Reports

1. The primary reason why Defendants have placed and kept this false information on Plaintiff’s reports is that furnishers (such as Defendant BOA) provide enormous financial rewards to Defendants Experian and Trans Union.
2. The importance of keeping false information on credit reports is that all the Defendants understand that one of the most powerful methods furnishers have to wrench payment from a consumer is by placing and keeping false accounts on the consumer’s credit reports.
3. Defendant BOA has a policy and procedure to refuse to properly update credit reports of consumers, like Plaintiff, who do not owe the alleged debt.
4. The reason is to keep false information on the credit report to force Plaintiff to pay a debt that is not owed.
5. Defendant BOA has promised through its subscriber agreements or contracts to accurately update accounts but Defendant BOA has willfully, maliciously, recklessly, wantonly, and/or negligently failed to follow this requirement as well as the requirements set forth under the FCRA and state law, which has resulted in the intended consequences of this information remaining on Plaintiff’s credit reports.
6. Defendant BOA assumed a duty, through the subscriber agreement and other actions, to accurately report the balances and this duty was breached in a negligent, wanton, reckless, willful, intentional, and/or malicious manner.
7. Defendant BOA has a policy to “park” its accounts on credit reports.  This is a term in the industry for keeping a false account on the credit report so that the consumer will be forced to pay money in order to obtain a refinancing or to qualify for a loan or to increase the consumer’s credit score from the artificially lowered score which directly resulted from the Trans Union, Experian  and BOA Defendants’ intentional and malicious conduct.
8. In parking or allowing the parking of an account, these Defendants know they are violating their obligations and duties under federal and state law to accurately report the account.
9. Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union know that parking a false account will lead to false and defamatory information being published every time the Plaintiff’s credit report is accessed (as happened to Plaintiff) and this is the malicious and intentional design behind Defendants’ actions with the goal to force the Plaintiff to pay on an account Plaintiff does not owe.
10. Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union maliciously, willfully, intentionally, recklessly, and/or negligently failed to review the information provided in the disputes and that was already in their files and to conduct a reasonable investigation on Plaintiff’s disputes, which led as a direct result and consequence to Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union either failing to delete information found to be inaccurate, failing to replace the inaccurate information with accurate information, and/or reinserting the information without following the dictates of the FCRA.
11. At all relevant times the Defendants Experian and Trans Union failed to maintain and failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of Plaintiff’s credit report, concerning the account in question, violating 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) and state law.
12. Defendant BOA failed to properly maintain and failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of Plaintiff’s credit information and Plaintiff’s credit report, concerning the account in question, thus violating state law and the FCRA.  These violations occurred before, during, and after the dispute process began with the Defendants Experian and Trans Union.

Summary of Wrongful Conduct

1. Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union understand that one of the most effective ways to collect bogus debts is to credit report against Alabama consumers such as Plaintiff.
2. Defendant BOA has taken illegal aggressive actions in a continued effort to collect the alleged debt against Plaintiff.  These actions include the continued reporting of the debt to third parties, including consumer-reporting agencies such as Defendants Experian and Trans Union.
3. The Defendants Experian and Trans Union have failed to maintain Plaintiff’s account with maximum accuracy and these Defendants and Defendant BOA have failed to properly investigate the account in response to the disputes made by Plaintiff.
4. The conduct of the Defendants has proximately caused Plaintiff past and future monetary loss, past and future damage to Plaintiff’s credit and credit worthiness, past and future mental distress and emotional anguish, and other damages that will be presented to the trier of fact.
5. It is a practice of all of the Defendants to maliciously, willfully, recklessly, wantonly and/or negligently ignore and refuse to follow the requirements of the FCRA and state law.
6. All Defendants know their conduct is wrong and have been sued multiple times for this type of wrongful conduct.
7. Significant punitive damages are needed to stop this type of inappropriate behavior from continuing to happen.
8. All actions taken by employees, agents, servants, or representatives of any type for the Defendants were taken in the line and scope of such individuals (or entities’) employment, agency or representation.
9. All actions taken by the Defendants were done with malice, were done willfully, and were done with either the desire to harm Plaintiff and/or with the knowledge that their actions would very likely harm Plaintiff and/or that their actions were taken in violation of the FCRA and/or state law and/or that they knew or should have known that their actions were in reckless disregard of the FCRA and/or state law.
10. All Defendants have engaged in a pattern and practice of wrongful and unlawful behavior with respect to accounts and consumer reports and as such all Defendants are subject to punitive damages and statutory damages and all other appropriate measures to punish and deter similar future conduct by these Defendants and similar companies.
11. All Defendants are liable to Plaintiff through the doctrine of Respondeat Superior for the wrongful, intentional and negligent acts, errors, and omissions done in violation of state and federal law by their employees and agents, including, but not limited to, violations of the FCRA and Alabama tort law, in their attempts to collect this debt from Plaintiff.

NEGLIGENT AND WANTON HIRING AND SUPERVISION

1. Defendants negligently and/or wantonly hired, trained, retained, or supervised incompetent agents and employees and are thereby responsible to the Plaintiff for the wrongs committed against Plaintiff and the damages suffered by Plaintiff.

CAUSES OF ACTION

COUNT I

VIOLATING THE FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT

1. Plaintiff incorporates by reference all paragraphs of this Complaint as though fully stated herein.
2. Defendants Experian and Trans Union are “consumer reporting agencies,” as codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(e).
3. Defendant BOA is an entity who, regularly and in the course of business, furnishes information to one or more consumer reporting agencies about its transactions or experiences with any consumer and therefore constitutes a “furnisher,” as codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2.
4. Plaintiff notified Defendants Experian and Trans Union directly of a dispute on the Defendant BOA account’s completeness and/or accuracy, as reported.
5. Defendants Experian and Trans Union failed to delete information found to be inaccurate, reinserted the information without following the FCRA, or failed to properly investigate Plaintiff’s disputes.
6. Plaintiff alleges that at all relevant times Defendants Experian and Trans Union failed to maintain and failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of Plaintiff’s credit report, concerning the accounts in question, violating 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b).
7. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants BOA,  Experian and Trans Union failed to conduct a proper and lawful reinvestigation.
8. All actions taken by the Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union were done with malice, were done willfully, and were done with either the desire to harm Plaintiff and/or with the knowledge that their actions would very likely harm Plaintiff and/or that their actions were taken in violation of the FCRA and state law and/or that knew or should have known that their actions were in reckless disregard of the FCRA and state law.
9. All of the violations of the FCRA proximately caused the injuries and damages set forth in this Complaint.

COUNT II

INVASION OF PRIVACY

1. Plaintiff incorporates by reference all of the paragraphs of this Complaint as though fully stated herein.
2. Alabama law recognizes Plaintiff’s right to be free from invasions of privacy and Defendants violated Alabama state law as described in this Complaint.
3. Congress explicitly recognized a consumer’s inherent right to privacy in collection matters in passing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, when it stated as part of its findings:

Abusive debt collection practices contribute to the number of personal bankruptcies, to marital instability, to the loss of jobs, and to invasions of individual privacy.

15 U.S.C. § 1692(a) (emphasis added).

1. Congress further recognized a consumer’s right to privacy in financial data in passing the Gramm Leech Bliley Act, which regulates the privacy of consumer financial data for a broad range of “financial institutions” including debt collectors (albeit without a private right of action), when it stated as part of its purposes:

It is the policy of the Congress that each financial institution has an affirmative and continuing obligation to respect the privacy of its customers and to protect the security and confidentiality of those customers’ nonpublic personal information.

15 U.S.C. § 6801(a) (emphasis added).

1. Defendants and/or their agents intentionally, recklessly, and/or negligently interfered, physically or otherwise, with the solitude, seclusion and or private concerns or affairs of the Plaintiff, namely, by repeatedly and unlawfully attempting to collect a debt and/or falsely credit report and thereby invaded Plaintiff’s privacy.
2. Defendants and their agents intentionally, recklessly, and/or negligently caused emotional harm to Plaintiff by engaging in highly offensive conduct in the course of credit reporting, thereby invading and intruding upon Plaintiff’s right to privacy.
3. Plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy in Plaintiff’s solitude, seclusion, private concerns or affairs, and private financial information.
4. The conduct of the Defendants and their agents, in engaging in the above-described illegal collection conduct against Plaintiff, resulted in multiple intrusions and invasions of privacy by Defendants which occurred in a way that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person in that position.
5. The false credit reporting by Defendant BOA, Trans Union and Experian naturally resulted in invasions of privacy of Plaintiff.
6. As a result of all intrusions and invasions of privacy, Plaintiff is entitled to actual damages in an amount to be determined at trial from Defendants.
7. All acts of Defendants and their agents and/or employees were committed with malice, intent, wantonness, and/or recklessness and as such Defendants are subject to punitive damages.

COUNT III

NEGLIGENT, WANTON, AND/OR INTENTIONAL HIRING AND

SUPERVISION OF INCOMPETENT EMPLOYEES OR AGENTS

1. Plaintiff incorporates by reference all of the paragraphs of this Complaint as though fully stated herein.
2. Defendants allowed and encouraged their agents and employees to break the law.
3. Defendants are aware of the wrongful conduct of their agents and employees.
4. Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union know and approve of their incompetent employees and agents who are involved in credit reporting.
5. All Defendants negligently, wantonly, and/or intentionally hired, trained, retained, or supervised incompetent credit reporting individuals and/or entities, who were allowed or encouraged to violate the law as was done to Plaintiff, and Defendants are thereby responsible to the Plaintiff for the wrongs committed against Plaintiff and the damages suffered by Plaintiff.

COUNT IV

NEGLIGENT, WANTON, AND INTENTIONAL CONDUCT

1. All paragraphs of this Complaint are expressly adopted and incorporated herein as if fully set forth herein.
2. Defendants owe a duty to anyone they come in contact with to act reasonably so as to not unreasonably cause harm.
3. Defendants assumed a duty to act reasonably towards Plaintiff and not to unreasonably cause Plaintiff harm.
4. Defendants owe a duty to consumers against whom they are collecting to act reasonably.
5. All of the actions described in this Complaint demonstrate that Defendants did not act reasonably towards the Plaintiff.
6. Defendants by their described conduct, breached their duty to act reasonably towards Plaintiff.
7. Defendants proximately caused injuries and damages to Plaintiff which were of the precise nature that Defendants anticipated causing when they breached their duty to act reasonably.
8. Defendants knew, or should have known, that their conduct was likely to lead to the Plaintiff’s injuries yet they acted despite this knowledge.
9. Defendants acted with full knowledge and with the design and intent to cause harm to Plaintiff.
10. Defendants were successful in their design, intent, and plan to cause harm to Plaintiff and this is the corporate policy of Defendants when dealing with consumers who do not pay debts that Defendants allege are owed.
11. Defendants acted with negligence, malice, wantonness, recklessness, and/or intentional conduct in their dealings with and about Plaintiff as set forth in this Complaint.
12. Defendants violated all of the duties Defendants had and such violations were made intentionally, willfully, recklessly, maliciously, wantonly, and negligently.
13. It was foreseeable, and Defendants did in fact foresee that the actions of the Defendants would lead and did lead to the exact type of harm suffered by Plaintiff.
14. Defendants acted with negligence, malice, wantonness, recklessness, and/or intentional conduct in their dealings with and about Plaintiff as set forth in this Complaint.
15. Defendants invaded the privacy of Plaintiff as set forth in Alabama law.
16. Such negligence, malice, wantonness, recklessness, willfulness, and/or intentional conduct proximately caused the damages set forth in this complaint.
17. Defendants have defamed Plaintiff even after Plaintiff requested in writing that Defendants withdraw the false statements.
18. As a result of this conduct, action, and inaction of Defendants, Plaintiff has suffered damage as set forth in this Complaint.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff prays that judgment be entered against all Defendants BOA, Experian and Trans Union for all damages allowable (including statutory, actual, compensatory, nominal and punitive), costs, expenses, attorney fees, injunctive relief to prevent further violations, and for such other and further relief as may be just and proper.

Respectfully Submitted,

John G. Watts (ASB-5819-t82j)

 M. Stan Herring (ASB-1074-n72m)

Watts & Herring, LLC

The Kress Building

301 19^th Street North

Birmingham, Alabama 35203

(205) 879-2447

(888) 522-7167 facsimile

john@wattsherring.com

stan@wattsherring.com

Attorneys for Plaintiff

PLAINTIFF DEMANDS A TRIAL BY JURY IN THIS CAUSE.

                                                      Attorney for Plaintiff

Serve defendants via certified mail at the following addresses:

Bank of America, N.A.

c/o CT Corporation System

2 North Jackson Street, Suite 605

Montgomery, Alabama 36109

Experian Information Solutions, Inc.

c/o CT Corporation System

2 N. Jackson Street, Suite 605

Montgomery, Alabama 36104

Trans Union, LLC

c/o Prentice-Hall Corporation System, Inc.

150 S. Perry Street

Montgomery, Alabama 36104