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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Class Says LexisNexis Botches Reports

CHICAGO (CN) - LexisNexis mismatched information about people in consumer reports and published the mistakes to third parties, a class action claims in Federal Court.

The class claims LexisNexis' reports included details about people who were not the intended subjects, due to its failure to correctly identify consumer data. Its publication of the inaccurate data was intentional and reckless, the complaint states, and is an unlawful credit reporting practice.

Lead plaintiff James M. Williams says LexisNexis Risk & Information Analytics Group's mistake cost him a job when it furnished a disparaging criminal background report on him to a potential employer. Williams says LexisNexis attributed to him a drug distribution conviction of a person with a similar name.

Although the true offender was in jail and the inaccuracies were obvious, LexisNexis issued the derogatory report and the company rescinded its offer of employment, Williams says.

He says he disputed the accuracy of LexisNexis' report, and when LexisNexis admitted its error. Williams says LexisNexis defamed him, in a claim separate from the class accusation for unfair credit reporting.

He claims LexisNexis' procedures for reporting public records violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act's "maximum possible accuracy" standard.

Williams claims LexisNexis failed to gather even minimally sufficient identifying information.

He demands statutory and punitive damages and costs. The class is represented by Daniel A. Edelman with Edelman, Combs.

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