In a move that will settle as many as 18 different lawsuits, Equifax has agreed to stop reporting civil judgments and tax liens on individuals’ credit reports for up to five years and pay each eligible consumer $1,500 to settle a case in which the credit bureau was accused of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to accurately report information on credit reports.
A copy of the memorandum in support of the plaintiff’s motion for preliminary approval of a class action settlement in the case of Thomas v. Equifax Information Services, LLC can be accessed by clicking here.
Equifax is accused of violating the FCRA by not collecting dispositions of civil judgments and tax liens with the same “vigor” with which it “diligently” collected the initial entry of those items.
The putative class size is as many as 20 million individuals, according to the proposed settlement document, and would bring “significant and groundbreaking relief to every American consumer who may have a civil judgment or lien in their Equifax credit report.”
Similar settlements have already been announced with TransUnion and Experian. Under the terms of this settlement, the settlement class includes:
All consumers in the United States about whom, between June 28, 2015, and the date of preliminary approval of the Settlement, Equifax issued a Consumer Report to a third party that contained a [civil judgment or tax lien] Public Record but did not accurately reflect the Disposition of the [civil judgment or tax lien] Public Record or that incorrectly attributed a [civil judgment or tax lien] Public Record to a consumer when it belonged to a different consumer.
