Jennifer Cushman has a permanent residence in Pennsylvania but attended college in Vermont. In the summer of 1993, an unknown person, possibly a member of her household in Philadelphia, applied under Ms. Cushman’s name for credit cards from three credit grantors: American Express (Amex), Citibank Visa, and Chase Manhattan Bank. The person provided the credit grantors with Ms. Cushman’s Social Security number, address, and other identifying information. Credit cards were issued to that person in Ms. Cushman’s name, and that person accumulated balances totaling approximately $2,400 on the cards between June 1993 and April 1994. All this occurred without Ms. Cushman’s knowledge.
In August 1994, an unidentified bill collector informed Ms. Cushman that Trans Union (TUC) was publishing a consumer credit report indicating that she was delinquent on payments to these three credit grantors. Ms. Cushman notified TUC that she had not applied for or used the three credit cards in question and suggested that a third party had fraudulently applied for and obtained the cards. In response, a TUC clerk called Amex and Chase to inquire whether the verifying information (such as Ms. Cushman’s name, Social Security number, and address) in Amex’s and Chase’s records matched the information in the TUC report. The TUC clerk also asked if Ms. Cushman had opened a fraud investigation with the credit grantors. Because the information matched and because Ms. Cushman had not opened a fraud investigation, the information remained in the TUC report. TUC was unable to contact Citibank, so TUC deleted the Citibank entry from the report. TUC’s investigations are performed by clerks who are paid $7.50 per hour and are expected to perform 10 investigations per hour.
TUC did not obtain records to perform a handwriting comparison. Ms. Cushman was denied credit because of the report. She filed suit under the FCRA. Did TUC violate the law? [Cushman v Trans Union Corp., 115 F.3d 220 (3rd Cir. 1997)]
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