Last month, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Inc. was sued in a proposed class action for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”).

Plaintiff Chad Bacon, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, alleges that LexisNexis violated the FCRA by failing to keep consumers’ tax lien and civil judgment data up-to-date.

Plaintiff asserts that in March of 2018, he applied for a loan with People’s Bank and was denied the loan, in part, due to inaccurate information provided by LexisNexis.  According to Plaintiff, his consumer report inaccurately reflected a Tennessee state tax lien recorded in January of 2014, which was satisfied in July 2014.  Additionally, Plaintiff alleges that his consumer report reflected a default judgment entered against him on January 25, 2016, which was later vacated and set aside on February 25, 2016.  In short, Plaintiff contends that LexisNexis failed to update its records and continued to report the tax lien and judgment as not having been satisfied or vacated.

Plaintiff further alleges that for many years, LexisNexis was the exclusive provider of tax lien and civil judgment information to the three big credit reporting agencies (“CRAs”) – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. In 2018 and 2019, the Big 3 CRAs stopped reporting public records and tax liens as part of three nationwide class action settlements.

As a result, Plaintiff contends that LexisNexis “decided to take advantage of the Big 3’s decision to stop selling LexisNexis’s data by marketing [and] selling its public record data in its own consumer reports.”  Plaintiff avers that LexisNexis uses automated procedures and vendors to collect information regarding judgments and tax liens that undergo little to no quality control, and such information is not adequately updated.  Further, Plaintiff alleges that LexisNexis knew about its inadequate procedures for years based on consumer disputes, but failed to correct its procedures. Moreover, Plaintiff claims that LexisNexis would rely on consumers to clean up their own files via the dispute process after learning of the inaccuracy, rather than ensuring that the data it was collecting was accurate.

The lawsuit, entitled Chad Bacon v. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Inc., is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia as case number 1:20-cv-01924.

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