An Illinois Appeals Court has affirmed a trial court’s ruling in favor of a financial institution and sanctions against a consumer who claimed the bank violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and was found to have manufactured evidence to try and make his case.
The background: The dispute began when the consumer stopped making payments on a credit card account, leading the bank to charge off the balance and file suit in 2015. The consumer countersued, asserting violations of the FCRA after alleging that the bank failed to investigate billing errors and reported inaccurate information to one of the credit reporting agencies.
- Over years of litigation and multiple amended pleadings, the consumer produced documents he claimed proved the credit reporting agency had contacted the bank about the dispute, including a letter allegedly sent in 2014 and an Automated Consumer Dispute Verification (ACDV) form.
- The bank maintained that the documents were fake, submitting affidavits showing that the account number cited in the letter did not exist until months after the letter’s purported date and that the logo of the credit reporting agency on the document was not created until 2015. The ACDV form, the bank added, appeared identical to a sample found on the credit bureau’s website and contained missing fields and placeholders inconsistent with authentic dispute forms.
- The trial court agreed, finding that the consumer’s evidence was fabricated “after-the-fact, in a clear perpetration of fraud on this Court and [the Bank].”
- As a sanction, it struck the fraudulent documents and granted summary judgment for the bank.
The ruling: On appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court for the Third District affirmed the lower court’s ruling, concluding that the trial court’s findings aligned with the weight of the evidence and that its decision to impose sanctions was not an abuse of discretion.
- In rejecting the consumer’s arguments, the appellate court said his explanations “strain credulity,” noting that his claim of a mere typo that happened to match the bank’s later-issued account number was “vanishingly small” in probability. It also emphasized that “outright fraud on the courts of this State is not to be countenanced,” affirming the sanctions as an appropriate response.
- The court further held that without the stricken documents, the consumer had no evidence supporting his FCRA claim and therefore summary judgment for the bank was proper.
