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DISCLAIMER: This article is based on a complaint. The defendant has not responded to the complaint to present its side of the case. The claims mentioned are accusations and should be considered as such until and unless proven otherwise.
Bankruptcy. It’s not for the faint of heart. A credit union and credit reporting agencies are facing claims they violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act over the plaintiff’s bankruptcy filing and how it was reported on the plaintiff’s credit report and for not conducting a reasonable investigation after the plaintiff filed a dispute.
The background: The plaintiff filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in July 2024. He included a debt that was owed to the defendant credit union, a car loan.
- During the bankruptcy, the plaintiff executed a reaffirmation agreement with the credit union, in which he agreed to continue making payments on the loan.
- In October 2024, the bankruptcy was discharged.
- In January 2025, the plaintiff checked his credit report and saw that the credit union was reporting the debt as “included in bankruptcy,” “bankruptcy chapter 7,” “bankruptcy discharged,” with one credit bureau and “discharged through bankruptcy chapter 7” with another credit bureau, according to the complaint. The credit bureaus also allegedly failed to included any payment history on the account after the plaintiff filed his bankruptcy petition.
- The plaintiff disputed the debt, but the credit union did not change how the information was being reported to the credit bureaus. In fact, the information being supplied by the two credit bureaus was now contradicting each other, according to the complaint. One bureau omitted the reference to the reaffirmation, but continued to report the bankruptcy and discharged while the other failed to report the payments that were made following the bankruptcy petition being filed.
The claims: The complaint accuses the two credit bureaus of violating Sections 1681e(b), 1681i, and 1681g of the FCRA. The credit union is being accused of violating Section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA for failing to reasonably investigate the dispute.
