Equifax Joins Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Berkshire Bank in FCRA Class Action Over Credit Report Accuracy

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A Georgia consumer has filed a proposed class action against Equifax Information Services, LLC, Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. and DBS Berkshire Bank in which she seeks to hold the entities responsible for allegedly continuing to report to credit bureaus inaccurate information concerning old debts.

The plaintiff claims she reached out to the credit reporting bureaus—Equifax, Trans Union, Experian—to dispute the accuracy of information included in her report regarding an account with Berkshire Hills-owned First Choice Bank. According to the suit, the last payment the plaintiff made on the account is dated May 1, 2010, past the allowable seven-year reporting period, with the account itself reflected as charged off.

“The account once charged off must remain in this state unless a payment is made, which did not happen in this instant,” the case states.

Despite receiving the plaintiff’s supposed dispute by way of Equifax, defendant Berkshire Bank allegedly failed to conduct a reasonable investigation into the matter. Instead, the lawsuit alleges, Berkshire continued to report inaccurate information on the plaintiff pertaining to “post-charge off late notations” for an account purportedly too old to be the subject of any credit reporting in the first place. Per defendant Equifax, the complaint claims that even with the plaintiff’s dispute, the embattled credit reporting firm failed to even make an attempt to reasonably verify the adverse information in the woman’s credit report.