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Class action against CRAs re. credit LIMITS

Monday, March 26, 2007

Motion for class certification Harris v. Equifax re. Cap One credit limits

I just downloaded the 2/2/07 motion for class certification in Harris v. Equifax, here’s an interesting excerpt:

B. Reasonable Procedures

Whether the procedures implemented to assure maximum possible accuracy were reasonable is almost always a jury question. Dalton, 257 F.3d at 416. The Fourth Circuit, however, has left open the question whether as a matter of law “an inaccuracy can be so egregious that it creates a presumption that the agency’s procedures were unreasonable.” Id. at 416 n.*; cf. Alexander v. Moore & Assocs., 553 F. Supp. 948, 952 (D. Haw. 1982) (articulating the balancing test adopted by Koropoulos) (“in weighing the misleading nature of [the information in the report] against the instant availability of clarifying information and the ease with which this clarifying information can be made available, the court concludes as a matter of law that [the CRA] is in violation of § 1681e(b) in failing to use reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the report.” (emphasis added)).

The impact of not reporting credit limits is widespread as credit limit information is used in calculating credit scores, and consumers depend on the accuracy of credit scores in their everyday transactions. Nevertheless, Equifax fed incomplete tradeline7 information—Capital One revolving credit card accounts with the credit limits missing—to its own scoring systems even though it knew the arbitrarily negative impact this procedure would have on the credit scores of potentially millions of Capital One account holders.

Even though Equifax has “…assumed a vital role in assembling and evaluating consumer credit and other information on consumers,” it took no action to correct the situation. 15 U.S.C. 1681(b). It never put pressure on Capital One to supply credit limit data as a condition of receiving credit reporting services from Equifax. Nor did Equifax make any serious attempt to persuade Capital One to comply with the credit reporting industry’s “full reporting” standards (Exhibit N). Equifax did not accept Capital One’s invitation, in testimony before a U.S. Senate panel in 2003, to present the credit card giant with evidence of the impact of Capital One’s policy on credit scores (Exhibit O). Moreover, Equifax failed even to implement a “consumer friendly” procedure whereby it would accept and report the credit limit for a Capital One account if the customer disputed the incomplete tradeline and provided Equifax the credit limit information with a copy of his or her monthly credit card statement. Instead, Equifax acquiesced to Capital One’s strategic decision not to report the consumer’s credit limit, despite Equifax’s knowledge that this practice would impact the ever-important credit utilization assessment under numerous credit scoring models, including Equifax’sown scoring model. Why would Equifax deviate from its own reporting standards and agree to accept an inferior piece of data? The answer is simple: corporate greed.

In short, Equifax displayed no appreciation of its “grave responsibilities” to consumers under the FCRA. 15 U.S.C. § 1681(b)(4). Its focus was solely on the bottom line. Given the stakes for such a large number of consumers and the misleading impression of their creditworthiness created by Equifax’sactions and omissions, Equifax’sfailure to respond to this state of affairs was patently unreasonable.8

Footnotes:

6 The CRAs’ own trade association recently told the Supreme Court that “if consumer reports become less complete and consequently, less accurate, they will be less predictive.” (emphasis added) Safeco v. Burr, GEICO v. Edo, On Writs Of Cert. to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Brief of Amicus Curiae Consumer Data Ind. Ass’n In Supp. of Pet’rs, Nov. 13, 2006. (Pertinent pages attached as Exhibit M.)

7 “Tradeline” is an industry term for the current and historical activities of a particular consumer’s account with a particular credit grantor.

8 Equifax has produced thousands of pages of documents in discovery, and Plaintiff has deposed five Equifax witnesses. There is no evidence whatsoever that Equifax made any significant effort to secure Capital One’s agreement to report credit limit data for its accounts.

To date, Equifax does not report the Cap One limits on my credit reports, my appeal brief is due this Thursday.  I sure hope that this class IS certified and that the CRAs will pay out many millions of dollars and either refuse the Cap One reporting or MAKE them report the limits.  But who knows how long it’ll take ...

There are MANY exhibits filed with the Harris motion, I wish I had the time and money to post it all at CreditLitigation.org If you want to see the docs posted for the general public and free of charge, please send a donation for that purpose. 

Or even better, maybe someone else could start paying for PACER docs and post them and update every few weeks?

Monday, January 29, 2007

VA class action against CRAs over credit LIMITS transferred to SC - new filings in Harris v. Equifax

On 12/20/06, the Virginia judge ordered the class action Byerson et al v. Equifax Information Services, LLC. et al, 3:06-cv-00582-REP, transferred to South Carolina.  And that’s just fine with me, since the VA court doesn’t provide any filings on PACER, the 12/20/06 order is the lone exception.  Especially in a class action ALL filings must be available online so the class members can see what’s going on and decided whether to be part of the class, fire their lawyers, etc., but I haven’t seen a website yet.

While the judge agreed that VA would have been convenient since Capital One is located in VA and much discovery will be done in VA, the SC case was filed first.

Docket update and the order

The South Carolina class actions are separate cases against each CRA and I just checked Harris v. Equifax Information Services LLC, 6:06-cv-01810-GRA

The docket update, 1st Amended Complaint, Amended Scheduling Order and the Equifax Answer

It’s hard to believe that Equifax has the NERVE to claim that they don’t have to report the limits.  Since all the filings are online, I sure hope we’ll get to see some interesting discovery.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Class actions against CRAs for failing to report the credit LIMITS

One class action is in VA, but I can’t get any of the docs because they’re NOT on PACER.

Byerson et al v. Equifax Information Services, LLC. et al
Filed 8/30/06 3:06-cv-00582

The other class actions are in South Carolina and we DO have the docs on PACER.  I just posted Harris v. Trans Union LLC
District Court District of South Carolina (Greenville)

CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 6:06-cv-01811-GRA filed 6/15/06
6:06-cv-01808-GRA 6:06-cv-01810-GRA

I think the related cases are the class actions against Equifax and Experian.