Court approves 1.8 million FCRA class action settlement with national bank
On August 16, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved a $1.8 million class action settlement resolving allegations that a national bank’s soft credit report inquiries were not permitted under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In 2015, a consumer filed the class action complaint alleging that the bank pulled his credit information without consent following a bankruptcy. The consumer alleged that because his debts to the bank had been discharged, the bank did not have a “permissible purpose” to pull the credit information. The approved settlement covers 114,512 claimants, who state their credit reports were accessed without permission by the bank, and grants each claimant $4.06. The settlement also requires the bank to pay attorneys’ fees and litigation costs for the plaintiff.