A District Court judge in Illinois has granted summary judgment in favor of three defendants, dismissing every claim brought by a pro se plaintiff who had filed two separate lawsuits arising out of a personal credit line he opened in 2021. The suit accused the defendants of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and other consumer lending laws.
The background: The plaintiff opened a personal credit line in October 2021, provided by a bank and serviced by a fintech company. The product was not a standard revolving credit card. Instead, draws on the credit line were grouped into individual closed-end loans called sublines, each with its own Truth in Lending disclosure. The plaintiff’s initial draws of $2,000 carried an APR of 29.48%, a finance charge of over $1,000, and a total balance of more than $3,000.
- The plaintiff fell behind on payments. The fintech charged off the account in August 2022 with a balance of approximately $2,998.92 and sold the account to a debt buyer the following month.
- The plaintiff filed two separate federal lawsuits in March 2025, which were eventually consolidated. Across the two cases, he alleged six distinct claims: FCRA violations against all three defendants, an FDCPA claim against the debt buyer, a Truth-in-Lending Act claim against the bank, an IRS Form 1099-C reporting violation against the fintech and bank, an Illinois Collection Agency Act claim against the debt buyer, and common law fraud against the fintech and bank.
- The plaintiff’s FCRA claims centered on his contention that the fintech had inaccurately reported account information, including the account open date, last payment date, account close date, and date of first delinquency. He also argued that the debt buyer and bank bore responsibility for the fintech’s reporting.
The ruling: Judge Matthew F. Kennelly of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment for all three defendants on all claims.
- On the FCRA claims against the fintech, the judge found that none of the alleged inaccuracies rose to the level required to survive summary judgment. The plaintiff’s own deposition testimony undermined his position: he acknowledged he was unaware of any inaccurate information the fintech had furnished and had no basis to challenge the reasonableness of its investigation. The judge found that even taking his post-deposition arguments based on the fintech’s own produced documents, no reasonable jury could find the reported data patently incorrect or materially misleading.
- The judge was particularly unsparing on the 1099-C claim. The plaintiff argued that a charge-off required the defendants to issue a Form 1099-C for cancellation of debt. Judge Kennelly called this “a basic misunderstanding,” explaining that a charge-off is a ledger reclassification, not forgiveness of a debt.
- The FCRA claim against the debt buyer failed because the plaintiff did not contend the debt buyer was a furnisher of information and offered no case law supporting a theory of vicarious liability based on its acquisition of the account.
- The FCRA claim against the bank failed for similar reasons: the plaintiff offered no evidence that the bank itself furnished any information to the credit reporting agencies or retained control over the fintech’s reporting.
- The FDCPA claim against the debt buyer was dismissed as time-barred. The only collection activity the plaintiff could point to was a demand letter sent in March 2023, but the FDCPA’s one-year statute of limitations had run by the time the plaintiff filed suit in March 2025.
- The Illinois Collection Agency Act claim failed because the debt buyer produced evidence of valid licensure throughout the relevant period, and the plaintiff’s counter-arguments about a change in ownership and a later effective date on a single license were insufficient to create a genuine factual dispute.
- The common law fraud claims were dismissed because the plaintiff could not identify a single false statement at his deposition, and any claim based on credit reporting data was preempted by the FCRA.
