Consumer Reporting Agency, Bank Erroneously Reported Man as Deceased, Class Action Says

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A California resident alleges in a proposed class action that he was erroneously reported as deceased by consumer reporting agency Experian Information Solutions and Barclays Bank Delaware, damaging his creditworthiness and reputation.

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The 16-page lawsuit says that Barclays, with whom the plaintiff held an account at the time, furnished the inaccurate information to Experian, who then purportedly disseminated it via consumer reports to third parties. Per the suit, both defendants failed to conduct basic investigations to confirm the accuracy of the information before distributing it, in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

As the case tells it, the plaintiff initially noticed a separate inaccuracy in the information reported by Experian concerning his Barclays account in November 2022. On November 7 of that year, the man disputed the error in a letter sent to Experian, the complaint says.

In mid-December 2022, the plaintiff again reviewed his Experian consumer report and realized that he was now being reported as deceased, the filing relays.

Although Experian and Barclays have access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) public database of death information—commonly known as the Death Master File (DMF)—the defendants “failed to cross-check the DMF to verify whether Plaintiff was a part of the catalog of social security numbers that belong to deceased individuals,” the lawsuit claims.

The suit charges that had Experian and Barclays maintained proper procedures and tried to verify the plaintiff’s information, they would have learned that he was indeed alive—especially considering that he had disputed an error within the previous two months.

According to the case, the inaccuracy has damaged the plaintiff’s credit score and “creditworthiness,” and he has since been denied numerous credit cards and a personal loan as a result of the defendants’ reporting.

The lawsuit looks to represent:

“a. [A]ll individuals with addresses in the State of California;

b. that disputed all or part of an account in their consumer report;

c. for whom Experian within 60 days thereafter noted in its Credit Report(s), “Consumer reported as deceased”;

d. regarding an individual who, at the time, was not listed on the Death Master File as deceased;

e. which deceased information was thereafter disseminated to third-parties;

f. on or after a date two (2) years prior to the filing of this action and on or before a date twenty-one (21) days after the filing of this action”; and

“a. [A]ll individuals with addresses in the State of California;

b. that disputed all or part of their Barclay account information to one or more of the Consumer Reporting Agencies;

c. which dispute was then forwarded to Barclays;

d. for whom Barclays reported to a Consumer Reporting Agency within the following 60 days that the consumer was deceased;

e. regarding an individual who, at the time, was not listed on the Death Master File as deceased;

f. on or after a date two (2) years prior to the filing of this action and on or before a date twenty-one (21) days after the filing of this action.”

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