Whether CRAs can satisfy the FCRA's reasonable investigation requirement by merely verifying information with furnishers

QUESTIONS PRESENTED ; Having accurate credit is vital to modern Americans. Without credit, you can’t get loans or credit cards, rent apartments or cars, get some jobs, get insurance or any number of other necessities. A 2012 study by the Federal Trade Commission says that 200 million American consumers have credit files with the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs) like the Respondents Equifax and TransUnion.! But the FTC also found that 26% of those reports had errors with 13% having significant enough errors to change credit scores. To protect consumers and creditors and the economy from erroneous credit reports, Congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. §1681 et seg. (“FCRA”) to require CRAs like the Defendants to act as credit watchdogs. The ; FCRA requires them to “adopt reasonable procedures” to monitor consumer credit and to do so “in a manner which is fair and equitable to the consumer.” At the heart of this law is a provision which lets consumers dispute inaccurate information in their credit reports and requires CRAs like Equifax and TransUnion to “conduct a reasonable investigation” of those disputes and fix the errors found. 15 U.S.C. §1681i(a). When the CRAs like Equifax and TransUnion fail to do that, the FCRA lets consumers sue to fix those errors. 15 U.S.C. §1681n(a) and §1681o{a). This is the key provision the FCRA uses to oversee the vastly important role these companies have taken on themselves, which Congress called a “grave 1 Federal Trade Commission, Report to Congress Under Section 319 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (“FTC Report”), at 2 (Dec. 2012). Apx-SCP-68. ; 1 responsibility”? required investigation and consumer oversight. That’s also the provision at issue here, because the lower Courts wiped that out. It is of maximum imperative public importance that this Honorable Court hear my Petition because the decisions below neutered the requirement that CRAs like TransUnion and Equifax investigate consumer disputes, in direct conflict with every other circuit court to examine the issue. The decisions below also let the CRAs intimidate consumers into dropping their FCRA lawsuits by letting CRAs like . TransUnion and Equifax make the consumer’s credit disappear unless the consumer agrees to drop their suit. TransUnion and Equifax call this a “litigation lock.” Together, these two changes to the law destroy the FCRA’s oversight of the CRAs. This is a very severe, dramatic and terrible change to the law which will do a lot of harm to many people. The questions presented are: Question 1. Whether CRAs like TransUnion and Equifax can satisfy the requirement of §1681i(a) of the FCRA that they “conduct a reasonable investigation” of the disputes consumers raise regarding the accuracy of information in their credit files by merely asking furnishers to verify the information provided and then re-parroting the furnisher’s response back to the consumer, effectively wiping out any independent investigation by the CRAs. , Question 2. Whether CRAs like TransUnion and Equifax can extort consumers into dropping their FCRA suits by making the consumer’s credit file inaccessible to creditors and to the consumer — making the consumer disappear to creditors — unless the consumer agrees to ; drop their lawsuit. Question 3. Whether the district and appellate courts can hold the : claims of pro se parties to different standards than represented 2 Tn 15 U.S.C §1681a, Congress makes findings that “[clonsumer reporting agencies have . assumed a vital role in assembling and evaluating consumer credit and other information on consumers. There is a need to insure that consumer reporting agencies exercise their grave responsibilities with fairness, impartiality,.and a respect for the consumer’s right to privacy.” 7 . parties, requiring lesser types of proof from represented parties and letting licensed attorneys engage in conduct courts would not allow against represented parties. I’m an upstate Ne