Alphera Financial Services Inaccurate Credit Info Class Action

Consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) play an outsize role in people’s lives these days, with even prospective employers and landlords asking for consumer reports. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) governs the activities of CRAs and also of the companies known as furnishers that provide information to CRAs. The complaint for this class action alleges that BMW Financial Services NA, LLC has furnished erroneous negative and derogatory information on consumer credit reports and has failed to properly investigates disputes.

Sometime around December 2010, plaintiff Martin Trim incurred a debt to BMW Financial, which does business as Alphera Financial Services. Eventually, sometime before April 2013, he paid off the debt in full and closed the account. 

However, six years later, Trim found the item on his Equifax credit report as a monthly scheduled payment of $371. Since Trim had paid the debt off and closed the account, the amount should have been reported as $0. 

Around June 6, 2019, Trim had his attorney send Equifax a written dispute of the item. The complaint says, “On information and belief, Equifax timely notified [Alphera] of [Trim’s] dispute, but [Alphera] failed to correct the information and continues to furnish false information.”

The problem seems not to have been solved to date. The complaint alleges, “[Alphera] continues to report an incorrect ‘status’ of the Debt and also continues to report incorrect historical information regarding the Debt.”

The complaint envisions two possibilities: (1) that, “during an investigation of [Trim’s] dispute, [Alphera] discovered the correct status of the Debt, as reported to Equifax, but [Alphera] willfully refused to correct the incorrect information…” or (2) “[Alphera] failed to investigate the Equifax claim at all, as required…” and thereby violated the law.

This matters to consumers, the complaint says: “When making decisions on whether or not to extend credit, lenders consider such obligations and borrowers will be unable to obtain financing for necessary things such as vehicles and homes.” The inaccurate reports “damage[e] [Trim’s] credit worthiness.”

Two classes have been proposed for this action. 

• Class A is all persons in the US who disputed inaccurate information with Alphera or its agents or employees, furnished to Equifax, which was not properly investigated or corrected on their credit report, between October 31, 2017 and October 31, 2019.
• Class B is all persons in California for whom Alphera of its agents or employees furnished incorrect or inaccurate information to Equifax, between October 31, 2017 and October 31, 2019.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Credit Reports, Discharged/invalid debts on credit report, Failure to properly investigate/correct errors on credit report