An FCRA lawsuit is a civil case brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, usually because something untrue is on a consumer report and the companies responsible for it were told and did not fix it. The statute gives consumers a private right of action, which means you can file in your own name rather than waiting for a regulator to act.
What has to have happened first
Almost every credit report lawsuit starts with a dispute. The wrong entry on its own is rarely the whole claim. What carries the case is what happened after you told them.
Once a consumer reporting agency receives your dispute, it must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation and either correct the item or delete it. It must also forward the dispute to the company that supplied the information, which then has its own duty to investigate and report back. When the item comes back “verified” and nothing on the report has changed, that is the point at which a claim usually becomes visible.
So the sequence matters: pull the report, dispute in writing, keep the response. Those three documents are most of the file.
Who you can sue
The Act reaches three kinds of defendant, and a single wrong entry can involve more than one.
- Consumer reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, and also the specialty agencies that report tenancy, employment, banking, and insurance histories. This is the path covered on our page about suing a credit bureau.
- Furnishers — the lender, servicer, or collector that sent the information to the agency in the first place, once it has received notice of your dispute.
- Background check and screening companies — the same rules apply when the report went to an employer or a landlord rather than a lender. That situation is set out on our page about suing a background check company.
Which of them is answerable depends on where the process broke down, and that is normally readable from the paperwork rather than a matter of guesswork.
What the statute allows you to recover
The Fair Credit Reporting Act separates negligent violations from willful ones.
For a negligent violation, a consumer may recover any actual damages sustained as a result of the failure, together with the costs of the action and reasonable attorney’s fees as determined by the court.
For a willful violation, a consumer may recover actual damages or statutory damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, plus such punitive damages as the court may allow, and again the costs of the action together with reasonable attorney’s fees.
Actual damages are broader than a declined application. They can include a higher interest rate, a lost apartment, a job offer withdrawn after a screening report, and the time and distress spent trying to correct something a company would not correct.
Attorney’s fees are part of the statute
People searching for what an FCRA case costs are usually asking whether they can afford one. The fee provision is written into the Act itself: in a successful action, the costs and reasonable attorney’s fees are recoverable from the defendant, as determined by the court. That is why cases of this kind are generally handled on a contingency basis rather than billed by the hour.
You pay nothing unless we win.
How long you have to file
An action must be brought no later than two years after you discover the violation, or five years after the violation occurred, whichever comes first. Because a dispute cycle can run for months, the date you first saw the error is worth recording as soon as you see it.
What an FCRA case actually involves
These are federal statutory claims, and they are document cases before they are anything else. The report, the dispute letter, the agency’s response, the internal record of what the furnisher did with the dispute — that material is what the case is built on and what discovery is aimed at.
Cases resolve in different ways. Some end once the error is corrected and the losses are addressed; others are litigated. No outcome can be promised at the outset, and prior results in other cases do not predict what will happen in yours.
What to gather before you call
- The report showing the error, with the date you pulled it
- The dispute you sent, and proof of when you sent it
- Every response you received, including the ones saying the item was verified
- Documents proving the entry is wrong — a payoff letter, a settlement agreement, a discharge order, an identity theft report
- Any denial letter naming the report as a reason
Speak to us about your report
The Kim Law Firm represents consumers in Fair Credit Reporting Act cases against consumer reporting agencies, background check companies, and the furnishers that supply them. If you would like an explanation of the statute itself before you call, our Fair Credit Reporting Act page covers it. Otherwise, send us the report, the dispute, and the response, and we will tell you whether we see a claim.
Contact us to have your report reviewed.
Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts.