Taking the Credit Bureaus to Small Claims Court

If you've taken all of the other steps (here and here) steps, you still have one final resort. By now most of the accounts should have been settled in your favor. But there may still be one or two tough things to get off of your report. The final method is to file small claims suits against any credit bureaus still reporting the negative information about you. Don't worry! It is much easier than it sounds. Most of the time they won't even put up a fight! After all, they benefit nothing by reporting your negative information. When they are threatened financially, they usually settle for removal in exchange for you dropping the suit. And remember, filing a small claims suit only costs only a small fee. Don't forget, if the original creditors and/or collection agencies have failed to validate and show proof of a debt to YOU, how could the credit bureaus possibly be verifying these debts!? They can't. This is because they verify the debts by contacting a $7 per hour clerk who says, "Yes, I see the debt listed on our computer." They call that verification. But the courts do NOT consider that proper verification. You will have many little known case laws to back you up. This is the stuff the credit bureaus don't want anyone to know!

What you can file against them for: "negligent and willful failure to reinvestigate the disputed entries in violation of sections 611(a), 616, and 617 of the FCRA, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681i(a), 1681n, 1681o"

A copy of a similar lawsuit appeal where TransUnion was completely trashed by the judge for their lackluster verification procedures can be found here.

Send a copy of the above case to a credit bureau's legal department, and we'll bet that they will suddenly want to settle with you!

A couple of other cases you may want to use are:

Richardson v. Fleet Bank of Massachusetts - the court held that the company failed to follow reasonable procedures by relying on creditors for accurate credit information because the company had reason to know of the dispute between the consumer and the company.

Bryant v. TRW - the Defendant consumer reporting agency unsuccessfully argued that, under §607(b) of the FCRA, 15 U.S.C. §§1681 et seq., it was not liable as a matter of law, for reports it issued in good faith, and as a result of inaccurate information provided to it by Plaintiff's creditors. The court held that Defendant was not free from liability when the credit reports at issue was not accurate. Once inaccuracy was determined, defendant's agency procedures were determined to be not reasonable to ensure maximum possible accuracy, pursuant to §§607(b). Entire case can be found here.