CFPB Sues Experian Over Failure to Remove Errors on Credit Reports

January 7, 2025 — Press Release

Experian Accused of Improperly Investigating Disputes, Threatening Consumers’ Access to Credit

WASHINGTON – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued Experian, one of the “Big Three ” nationwide consumer credit reporting agencies, for conducting sham investigations when consumers disputed errors on their credit reports instead of the reasonable investigations required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. When consumers did manage to get errors taken off their reports, the CFPB alleges that Experian illegally put back, or reinserted, the inaccurate information on their reports.

“For decades, Experian and others have conducted terrible and perfunctory so-called investigations when consumers tried to fix errors on their credit reports – ‘sham’ is exactly right,” said Chi Chi Wu, senior attorney at National Consumer Law Center. “It’s about time a credit bureau was held accountable for their deliberately-designed biased and inadequate dispute systems.”  Wu is the lead author of Automated injustice, a key 2009 report on the dysfunction of the credit reporting dispute systems, as well as a 2019 update Automated Injustice Redux.

“The credit reporting dispute system is as biased as it is broken,” said Ariel Nelson, senior attorney at NCLC. “Experian and other credit bureaus not only engage in sham investigations, they always defer to the creditor or debt collector that supplied the erroneous information, a practice we call ‘parroting.’  It’s like a judge who always rules for the defendants.”

“Millions of people have filed complaints with the CFPB to express their frustrations with the major credit reporting agencies,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America. “We need a strong CFPB to stop this and other examples of widespread corporate wrongdoing. With today’s enforcement action, the CFPB is fulfilling its mission to stand up for people when a dangerous corporate practice threatens their financial security.”  

“Instead of addressing known credit reporting errors, Experian is notorious for forcing consumers into arbitration and evading accountability for decades of inaccurate credit reports,” said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform. “The CFPB is under attack, but once again, this action shows how the CFPB is stepping in to protect consumers and hold credit reporting agencies accountable for errors that unjustly lowered credit scores, and in some cases, even cut off someone’s ability to access credit. Congress must support a strong and independent CFPB.” 

“The outcome of this lawsuit may turn on who is the next director of the CFPB, but protecting people from mistakes on their credit report is not a partisan issue,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of NCLC. “This lawsuit shows why members of both parties should support a strong and independent CFPB.”

Related Resources

• CFPB Finds Violations of Credit Report Accuracy Requirements, Including for Survivors of Human Trafficking, Apr. 8, 2024
• Past Imperfect: How Credit Scores and Other Analytics “Bake In” and Perpetuate Past Discrimination, Feb. 27, 2024
• Digital Denials: How Abuse, Bias, and Lack of Transparency in Tenant Screening Harm Renters, Sept. 26, 2023
• Mission Creep: a Primer on Use of Credit Reports & Scores for Non-Credit Purposes, Aug. 3, 2022
• Automated Injustice Redux: Ten Years After a Key Report, Consumers Are Still Frustrated Trying to Fix Credit Reporting Errors,  Feb. 1, 2019
• Automated Injustice: How a Mechanized Dispute System Frustrates Consumers Seeking to Fix Errors in Their Credit Reports,  Jan. 14, 2009   

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