In a rare win for consumers, a three judge federal appeals panel in California found that Experian was negligent in violating provisions of federal and state credit reporting laws. In fact, the appellate court refused to remand the case back to the trial court, stating that “no rational jury could find that the company wasn’t negligent.”
Unfortunately, the facts of this case were not unusual. The plaintiff, Jason Dennis, had been denied a loan. After pulling his credit report, he discovered that Experian had erroneously reported a court judgment against him. Mr. Dennis contacted Experian in effort to correct the erroneous report, but Experian refused to make the correction.
A Boston-based consumer advocacy group known as U.S. PIRG conducted a survey in 2004 which found that almost one-third of all credit reports contain errors which are serious enough to result in the denial of employment, insurance or credit.
