CHARLESTON – A man is suing Equifax Information Services LLC after he claims it violated the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Federal Fair Credit Billing Act.
Asset Acceptance LLC was also named as a defendant in the suit.
On April 3, Ian Carroll pulled a credit file from Equifax through the annual credit reporting website and the credit report had a serious error, according to a complaint filed June 19 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Carroll claims in 2005, he opened an account with Dell Financial, which he subsequently paid off in 2008.
In January 2014, Asset Acceptance sued Carroll on a consumer account placed with AA by Dell or purchased by AA from Dell that he did not owe and the case was filed in Logan Circuit Court.
On April 13, AA entered into an agreed order dismissing the case with prejudice, according to the suit.
Carroll claims sometime in the spring, he first disputed the credit file entry of AA's reporting on Equifax of a debt owed in the amount of $3,532 to Dell and Equifax forwarded the dispute to AA for verification.
AA verified the disputed information as accurate to Equifax and Equifax noted Carroll's consumer report as stating that the account was disputed, according to the suit.
Carroll claims on April 16, his counsel disputed the entry again, this time by certified mail.
Equifax did not comply with its statutory obligations in conducting a reinvestigation, by simply sending the data to AA and reposting whatever AA stated, according to the suit.
Carroll claims the defendants violated the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and Equifax has defamed him by failing to maintain reasonable procedures with which to filter and verify disputed information.
Carroll is seeking actual, statutory and punitive damages. He is being represented by Benjamin Sheridan, Hoyt Glazer and Mitchell Lee Klein of Klein, Sheridan & Glazer LC.
The case is assigned to District Judge Thomas E. Johnston.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number: 2:15-cv-07968