LexisNexis, Kroll Consumer Reports Info on Judgments and Liens Class Action

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that companies that collect or sell data on individuals must use reasonable means to ensure that their data is accurate. This class action alleges that LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Kroll Factual Data, Inc. do not take such precautions in supplying or selling data about civil judgments or liens. It brings suit under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

LexisNexis offers consumer reports about on individuals that include information on civil judgments or tax liens. The complaint alleges that LexisNexis “diligently collects the initial entry of these judgments and liens, however when a later event occurs with respect to those records (for example, when a judgment is satisfied or a lien is withdrawn or released), LexisNexis does not collect the subsequent disposition of that judgment or lien.”

Kroll buys this kind of data from LexisNexis and, the complaint alleges, “does not take adequate steps to verify that records it purchases from LexisNexis are accurate.”

The complaint claims that LexisNexis used to be the exclusive consumer reporting agency (CRA) provider this kind of information for the “Big 3” credit bureaus—Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. However, it says, the information provided was “frequently inaccurate and out-of-date.” After difficulties with state attorneys general and three class actions against them, the complaint says, the Big 3 agreed to stop reporting this information.

However, the complaint says, “LexisNexis has issued marketing materials targeted at lenders and creditors regarding the purported ‘negative consequences’ of not having tax lien and civil judgment information included in credit reports.” It now issues a RiskView Liens and Judgment Report as offering information on civil judgments and tax liens no longer supplied by the Big 3.

How out of date is the information? During litigation against Experian, “the data analyzed showed an average delay in obtaining and reporting civil judgment status updates at 77 months, and in South Carolina, lien updates took an average of 243.5 days between the time the disposition update was recorded in the public record and the date that Experian eventually obtained it.”

The complaint claims, “Thus, LexisNexis published public records data that it knew would be inaccurate if a release, satisfaction, dismissal, vacatur or appeal had occurred.” Not only that; the complaint alleges that it does not always “obtain full identifying information, LexisNexis frequently attributes records to the wrong consumers.”

The LexisNexis Class for this action is all natural persons who (1) were the subject of a civil judgment or tax lien recorded in a court or court clerk’s office in the US (2) where the judgment or lien appeared in a Kroll or CBC Innovis consumer report dated between August 7, 2015 and August 7, 2020, and (3) where the public record filing of the related agency showed that the judgment or tax lien had been satisfied, vacated, dismissed, released or withdrawn at least thirty days before the date of the consumer report on which it appeared.

A similar Kroll Class has also been defined.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Background Reports, Credit Reports, Erroneous Information on Report, Providing Outdated Information on Reports