The Hernandez, et. al. v. Experian Information Solutions Inc. et al. class action lawsuit was brought in the United States Court for the Central District of California.
Contents
Bankruptcy Discharge Settlement Scam
The defendants in the case include Equifax Information Services LLC, Experian Information Solutions Inc. and TransUnion LLC. The lawsuit was filed against the mentioned companies for allegedly violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act and related state laws.
Plaintiff Allegations
They broke these laws by allegedly not following the required procedures for accurately reporting debts discharged in bankruptcy, and failing to investigate disputes from consumers about this. According to the plaintiffs, defendants were allegedly reporting those kinds of debts as “in collection” or “due and owing” on their credit reports. The plaintiffs argue that the defendants should have instead reported those debts as “included in bankruptcy”. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants failed to properly investigate the matter even after the plaintiffs disputed such reporting.
Plaintiffs want injunctive relief and statutory and punitive damages. The companies deny all the allegations and they can defend themselves and that the Plaintiffs are not entitled to any benefits from this litigation.
Conditions For Being A Class Member
All consumers that received an order or discharge of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and who had a credit report issued by a defendant that contained debts, accounts, judgments, or other obligations discharged in bankruptcy that were not reported as discharged in bankruptcy. The credit report must have been issued between March 15, 2002 and May 11, 2009, or for California residents, May 12 2001 and May 11, 2009.
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The Estimated Amount and Settlement Pool
The settlement money will be used to pay for damage award claims by consumers and pay class counsel’s attorney’s fees and their expenses. The class representatives will be paid a service award and also payment for the costs of notice and administering the settlement. Proof of purchase will be required. The settlement pool is $36.8 million.
How To Deal With Credit Report Inaccuracies
The normal thing to do if you spot inaccuracies in your credit report is to dispute it. Once you do that the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that those inaccuracies in your credit report should be cleaned up. Not all inaccuracies can be removed by the credit reporting agencies. The things that can be removed include:
- Wrong information such as an account you never opened , someone else’s name or judgment for a lawsuit you were never part of
- Duplicate information that may make lenders believe you owe more debt or credit problems than you actually do
- Old information that is negative can be removed after a period of time. These include lawsuits, judgments, liens, foreclosures and more.
To ask for old or inaccurate information to be removed, just file the dispute with the bureau. You can also call or email them about the issue. After that, the bureau has 30 days to investigate the matter and verify the information. During this time a dispute notation will show up in your report. The problem is that that credit reports usually have a number of errors and not all errors are that simple to remove according to an article on CNBC.