Consumer complaint received 2020-10-15
Company: LEXISNEXIS
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Public record information inaccurate

Complaint:
I. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 1. This a petition for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681-1681x ( FCRA ) by XXXX XXXX seeking relief for Respondents widespread violations thereof. 

2. Despite the public availability of court records that conclusively demonstrate that certain court records in eviction cases have been dismissed, withdrawn, vacated, satisfied, or resulted in judgments for tenants, Respondent routinely fails to obtain up-to-date information pertaining to the disposition. 


3. Respondents practices harm consumers seeking residential leases by prejudicing their prospective landlords with inaccurate, adverse information. 

II. PARTIES 4. Petitioner XXXX XXXX ( Petitionoer or Mr. XXXX XXXX is an adult individual who resides in XXXX XXXX County, California. At all times pertinent hereto, the Respondent was a consumer as that term is defined by 15 U.S.C. 1681a ( c ). 

5. Respondent XXXX, XXXX ( Respondent or XXXX ) regularly conducts business in the State of California. Respondent also does business as XXXX, having acquired certain assets of XXXX XXXX, XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. 

6. At all times pertinent hereto, Respondent was a person and a consumer reporting agency ( CRA ) within the meanings of 15 U.S.C. 1681a ( b ) and ( f ), respectively.

III. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS 7. Respondents practices harm consumers seeking residential leases by prejudicing their prospective landlords with inaccurate, adverse information as it did for Petitioner 8. The FCRA is intended to protect consumers from the transmission of inaccurate information about them, and to establish credit reporting practices that utilize accurate, relevant, and current information in a confidential and responsible manner. Cortez v. Trans Union, LLC, 617 F.3d 688, 706 ( 3d Cir. 2010 ) 9. Respondent is required by the FCRA to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom its reports relate. 15 U.S.C. 1681e ( b ).

10. For many years, Respondent has purchased public records information pertaining to residential eviction litigation ( eviction information ) from third-party vendors instead of retrieving the actual underlying court records themselvesor even more manageable digital representationsfor the purpose of creating and selling consumer reports to third party landlords and rental property managers. 


11. The eviction information Respondent purchases is merely a summary prepared by its vendors LexisNexis that does not include all the information or the most up-to-date information available at the courthouses or government offices where the records themselves are housed in conjunction with the day-to-day functioning of those entities. Both LexisNexis and Respondent are subject to two class action lawsuits because of the very same reporting irregularities attached herein.

12. Respondent knows that its public records vendors make mistakes in the condensed, summary eviction information that it purchases for credit reporting purposes and that the information routinely does not include the most up-to-date status of the actual cases.

13. Purchasing distilled, incomplete public records information was the impetus for regulatory investigations of the Big Three CRAs, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX  XXXX XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX   XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, and dozens of FCRA lawsuits throughout the United States, including in this District. 

14. For example, in XXXX, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( CFPB ) noted that CRAs did not adequately oversee their public records vendors : Examiners found that the oversight of public records providers by one or more CRAs was weak and required corrective action. For example, one or more CRAs had never conducted a formal audit of their public records providers. In addition, one or more CRAs did not have defined processes to verify the accuracy of public record information provided by their public records providers. In light of such weaknesses, Supervision directed one or more CRAs to establish and implement suitable and effective oversight of public records providers. ( CFPB, Supervisory Highlights, 2.1.1 ( Summer XXXX ), available at http : //files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201506_cfpb_supervisory-highlights.pdf ( last viewed XX/XX/XXXX ) 15. Further, the CFPB expressed concern about the accuracy of public records information that the CRAs imported into their consumer databases : Examiners reviewed quality control processes with respect to the accuracy of consumer reports produced by one or more CRAs and found that, with certain exceptions, there were no quality control policies and procedures to test compiled consumer reports for accuracy. While processes existed to analyze and improve the quality of incoming data, there was no post-compilation report review or sampling to test the accuracy of consumer reports. In light of these weaknesses, Supervision directed one or more CRAs to develop a plan with implementation timelines to establish quality controls that regularly assess the accuracy and integrity of the consumer reports and consumer file disclosures produced. Id. at 2.1.2.

16. Other regulators, including the New York Attorney General, initiated investigations of the Big Three in part due to similar problems with the accuracy and currency of publics records information in credit reports.

17. The Big Three ultimately entered into an agreement with the New York Attorney General that they took to calling the National Consumer Assistance Plan ( NCAP ). ( Settlement Agreement, In the Matter of the Investigation by XXXX XXXX XXXX, Attorney General of the State of New York, of XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ; XXXX  XXXX XXXX, XXXX ; and XXXX, XXXX, XXXX : //www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/CRA % 20Agreement % 20Fully % 20Executed % 203.8.15.pdf ( last viewed XX/XX/XXXX ). ) XXXX. As of XX/XX/XXXX, pursuant to the requirements of the settlement and the NCAP, the Big Three ceased including in credit reports civil judgment information that did not meet certain minimum standards. In practice, this meant that civil judgments disappeared entirely from consumer reports prepared by the Big Three.bSee CFPB, Quarterly Consumer Credit Trends Report, 2-3 ( XX/XX/XXXX XXXX https : //www.consumerfinance.gov/documents/6270/cfpb_consumer-credit-trends_public- records_022018.pdf ( last viewed XX/XX/XXXX XXXX. 

19. Although the Big Three stepped back from using public records information in some of their consumer reporting products, other CRAs, like Respondent, continue to do so.

20. At all times relevant to these allegations, Respondent was aware of the investigations of the CFPB and state attorneys general into the Big Threes public records practices, the NCAP, the various public records class actions pending throughout the United States, and its obligations under the FCRA.

21. Nevertheless, Respondent, fully aware of the problems associated with the incomplete and inaccurate public records information purchased from vendors of such information, continues to report eviction information to potential landlords.

22. The data and reports Respondent sells are used and expected to be used for multiple purposes governed by FCRA section 1681b and the information included in them bears on the credit history, credit worthiness, reputation, personal characteristics, and mode of living of each respective consumer. Thus, the reports that Respondent sells about thousands of consumers each year are consumer reports. See 15 U.S.C. 1681a ( d ).

23. Based upon a common policy and practice, Respondent regularly reports inaccurate and out-of-date eviction information pertaining to cases and judgments that have been dismissed, withdrawn, satisfied, or have resulted in a judgment for the tenant. 


24. Respondents practices not only violate the FCRA as a matter of law, they exact serious consequences on rental housing applicants and interstate commerce. Consumers who have obtained the dismissal, withdrawal of an eviction matter, satisfied an eviction judgment, or prevailed in an eviction matter are prejudiced in their ability to obtain leased housing. 

IV. PETITIONERS EXPERIENCE 25. At all times relevant to Petitioners allegations, information pertaining to Landlord Tenant Complaints filed in the XXXX XXXX XXXX Superior Court , including full case dockets and digital representations of all documents filed in such cases, including, but not limited to complaints, judgments, XXXX, withdrawals, and satisfactions of judgment, were publicly available. 

26. On or about XX/XX/XXXX, Plaintiff applied to rent an apartment of moderate housing as defined by the Housing Authority for City of XXXX XXXX at XXXX XXXX XXXX at XXXX XXXX managed by XXXX XXXX XXXX in an apartment building in the XXXX XXXX area of the City of XXXX XXXX. 


27. In conjunction with his application, Respondent prepared a Rental Report about Plaintiff for a fee under the trade name XXXX. 

28. Upon information and belief, The XXXX passed Respondents fee along to Plaintiff as an application fee. 


29. The Rental Report contained credit information about Plaintiff that Respondent had acquired from XXXX, one  of the Big Three national credit reporting agencies. 

30. The Rental Report included a header labeled Landlord Tenant Court Records.  However, upon information and belief, Respondent did not conduct any independent search of relevant civil records, but rather purchased the data it included in the Rental Report from a third- party vendor namely LexisNexis Risk Solutions. 

31. Upon information and belief, Respondent purchased the eviction information from XXXX  after XXXX itself had stopped including public records information in its own credit reports. 


32. The first inaccurate and out-of-date item appeared, in relevant part, as follows : Landlord Tenant Court Records A landlord tenant court record does not necessarily mean that a tenant owed rent or was evicted from an apartment.

Date Filed Case Type Case Number Record Source Record Vendor 8/2015 CIVIL ACTION FOR POSSESSION XXXX XXXX XXXX COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT, XXXX XXXX XXXX LexisNexis Risk Data Retrieval Services,  LLC Judgment Judgment Amount Status Amount Paid Possession Only Judgment for Plaintiff XX/XX/XXXX {$0.00} {$0.00} Defendants XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Address Comments XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, CA XXXX Plaintiff Phone # XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. This information was inaccurate and out-of-date because the original case number in the complaint filed against Petitioner was XXXX XXXX ; on XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX was reduced to judgment of dismissal but that judgment was with prejudice to named Plaintiff in that action amongst other cases as there were multiple parties. Please See stenographer notes. Respondents reflecting these updates were filed on the publicly-available case docket contemporaneously with their entry and used the wrong case number and the wrong outcome. 

34. Nevertheless, the Rental Report contained no reference to the vacatur of the case of the judgment dismissal with prejudice. Please See Multi Order of Dismissal 35. As of the date of the Rental Report, Respondent had failed to update the status to have XXXX XXXX XXXX decide to approve Petitioner which is predicated on the records maintained by Respondent and the accuracy thereof.

36. Petitioner has sought to dispute the items via RealPages, Inc.s dispute procedure that has failed to receive and intelligible response or otherwise ignored and not processed with a boilerplate response of no investigation nor corrective action taken place.

V. BASIS FOR RELIEF FIRST BASIS FOR RELEIF VIOLATION of FCRA SECTION 1681e ( b ) 37. Plaintiff incorporates the foregoing paragraphs as though the same were set forth at length herein.

38. Pursuant to sections 1681n and 1681o of the FCRA, Respondent is liable to the Petitioner for negligently and willfully failing to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom a consumer report relates, in violation of section 1681e ( b ). Specifically, Respondent failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum accuracy of eviction information contained in tenant screening reports prepared about Petitioner hereby publishing inaccurate and outdated eviction information to their potential landlords and property managers.

VI. PRAYER for RELIEF 39. WHEREFORE, Petitioner prays the enter an order  granting relief to have Respondent take corrective action to remove the inaccurate information 40. Any further relief or order that the CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAUX deem appropriate or just. 


Dated : XXXX XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX County. California. Respectfully submitted, By : /s/ XXXX XXXX ____________________________________

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation