Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  09/14/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  15 U.S.C. **** Any person who obtains a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose shall be liable to the consumer reporting agency for actual damages sustained by the consumer reporting agency or $1,000, whichever is greater.

  Business response

  09/25/2023

  The statute cited in the complaint, 15 U.S.C. ****, was not violated. Our firm did not "obtain a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose." Thus, the statute does not apply to the current situation.

  The complaint was addressed to **** **********************, who died in 2016. Mark ********************** is in no way involved with **************** or his outstanding accounts.

  Our firm does not report any debts to the credit bureaus. However, credit bureaus routinely check state court records and will add a judgment debt to a consumer's credit report if the judgment remains unpaid. An ******* state court judgment was entered against **************** by the ********** County Circuit Court on August 12, 2019. The parties have engaged in settlement negotiations, but no payments have been made to resolve the debt in the 4+ years since the judgment date. 

  **************** is not a consumer or client of our business, but rather a legal adversary. We cannot provide the relief he seeks -- to have his credit report amended -- because we did not report the outstanding judgment debt to any credit bureaus. Only **************** is capable of getting the debt removed from his credit report. Possibly the only way for him to accomplish that outcome would be to pay off the balance due, currently $18,140.16, and subsequently provide proof to the credit bureaus that the judgment debt is paid in full. 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩