Experian Named in Class Action Alleging It Produced Inaccurate Background Reports

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A Virginia consumer has brought a proposed class action against Experian Information Solutions, Inc. that claims the company produced a copy of his background report that erroneously included two civil judgments against him. Moreover, the plaintiff alleges Experian’s report on him also contained incorrect personal identifying information, including an incorrect name, phone number and mailing address.

At greater issue in the lawsuit, however, are allegations that Experian does not have in place reasonable procedures to ensure the highest level of accuracy of the consumer data on which it reports. According to the complaint, the defendant received more than 100 disputes from Virginia residents alone in the last two years over supposedly inaccurate civil court information. The lawsuit blames Experian’s alleged failures on its practice of obtaining consumer information from Lexis Nexis via “webscrape” software that can automatically collect judgment data from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s website.

But it doesn’t stop there. The case goes on to allege Experian outright refuses to investigate disputes by placing blame on consumers themselves for the ostensibly inaccurate information the company reports. The lawsuit places a guess as to the motives behind Experian’s alleged business practices.

“Experian does not make money by processing disputes from consumers—in fact, this is purely an expense for Experian,” the complaint alleges. “As a result, Experian now processes consumer disputes in Chile for a small fraction of the amount that Experian previously spent on disputes when they were processed in the United States. It is in Experian’s interest to reject disputes for any possible reason, as doing so saves money.”