Have you just found inaccuracies on your credit report? Perhaps you've had an unfortunate credit nightmare, such as the refusal of a mortgage or a car loan?
You will be able to make a lawsuit under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a set of regulations intended to protect the integrity of consumer reporting records while also ensuring that information published by consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) and businesses that provide information to CRAs is as reliable as possible.
To achieve these objectives, the FCRA allows users to keep CRAs responsible for providing false details on credit reports that they issue. CRAs also contain inaccurate details from different parties in a single credit record, resulting in a "mixed credit log." This is a violation of the FCRA, and customers will need to rely on the FCRA-granted abilities to fix the harm caused by the CRAs' development of mixed credit files.
What is the source of mixed credit files?
A CRA can mix up two credit files for a variety of reasons. CRAs can provide information about one person in the credit file of another person with a similar name, address, or social security number.
Furthermore, lenders and borrowers may sometimes report details to CRAs with minimal identifying information, leading CRAs to incorrectly file the information in a mixed register. Whatever the specific cause in a specific event, the end result is a credit report that includes details from two separate customers. The consequences can be disastrous.
Why should I be concerned with mixed files?
Incorrect details in a mixed credit file may have serious and negative consequences, which you do not know until you apply for credit from a lender.
Since lenders often rely heavily on the contents of a credit report to accept a loan, mixed credit will give the impression to a lender that you have delinquencies, undue hard investigations, a disproportionate debt burden, or even bankruptcy discharges that, in reality, are only reported on your credit report because the CRA mixed another person's credit background with your own. Because of this misinformation, the lender can only give you credit with unfavorable conditions. Worse, the misinformation could cause the lender to hesitate to extend your credit entirely.
Aside from the apparent financial harm that these situations can do, mixed credit files can wreck havoc in a person's personal life, creating an enormous amount of needless emotional trauma.
Possible monetary restitution for FCRA violations.
A borrower can be liable for punitive compensation for harm incurred by a mixed credit file, in addition to the peace of mind that comes with a corrected credit file. In one instance, an Oregon woman was compensated $18.4 million after successfully suing Equifax for failure to fix her mixed credit file.