TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions Sued Over Allegedly Inaccurate Background Report

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A Georgia resident has filed a proposed class action against TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions, Inc. in which he claims the company furnished an inaccurate background report that falsely indicated the man was convicted of a sexual offense.

According to the case, the plaintiff’s application for a Newnan, Georgia apartment was rejected as a result of a July 2018 background check performed by the defendant. The lawsuit says the company falsely reported that the plaintiff was convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a minor in South Carolina when, in reality, the man had no criminal record. “[M]ortified” by the report, the plaintiff claims he went on to investigate the information. From the complaint: 

“In approximately five minutes on the internet, Plaintiff was able to pinpoint the flaw in Defendant’s reporting: Defendant was reporting the conviction of another individual [with the same name], who had been born in 1936, convicted in 1994, and who is likely deceased.”

The case notes that the defendant referenced “a number of physical characteristics” in the report that did not fit the plaintiff, which could have easily been noticed by “simply consulting Plaintiff’s driver’s license.” 

“If Plaintiff was able to find the source of Defendant’s error in five minutes on a court’s website, Defendant should have been able to avoid that error in the first instance,” the complaint reads.

Further, the suit alleges the defendant misrepresented the sources of its information. In an effort to “pinpoint the source of the error” in his report, the plaintiff supposedly requested a copy of his file in August 2018 and found that the defendant named “SC Dept of Corrections” and Aiken County, South Carolina as its sources. The suit claims it was “readily apparent” that the company did not source its data from Aiken County as the report was inconsistent with information available on the county court’s website.