A federal jury has awarded a Oregon woman $18.6 million after she spent two years unsuccessfully trying to get Equifax to correct false information on her credit report which damaged her ability to obtain loans.
According to The Oregonian, the judgement, which appears to be one of the largest awarded to a consumer against a major credit bureau, is likely to be appealed.
“Julie Miller of Marion County, who was awarded $18.4 million in punitive and $180,000 in compensatory damages, contacted Equifax eight times between 2009 and 2011 in an effort to correct inaccuracies, including erroneous accounts and collection attempts, as well as a wrong Social Security number and birthday. Yet over and over, the lawsuit alleged, the Atlanta-based company failed to correct its mistakes,” said the Oregonian.
“There was damage to her reputation, a breach of her privacy and the lost opportunity to seek credit,” said Justin Baxter, the Portland attorney who teamed on the case with his father and law partner, Michael Baxter. “She has a brother who is disabled and who can’t get credit on his own and she wasn’t able to help him.”
Miller’s problems originated when Equifax mingled her information with another Julie Miller who had a poor credit history.
A small-scale federal study this year showed that of 1,000 consumers who received their credit reports found that one out of five contained errors.
Another study, by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch involving 30,000 consumer complaints, showed that many consumers had to wait months before credit companies corrected errors.
Under federal law, the three major consumer credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – must provide a free credit report once a year, if a consumer requests it. They are also required to correct errors.
If you have a problem obtaining a credit report or if a credit reporting agency is failing to correct false information, you can call the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at 855-411-2372.
