On April 16, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina dismissed with prejudice a consumer’s FCRA claims against three consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), holding that the consumer failed to plausibly allege an inaccuracy in his credit report that was “objectively and readily verifiable.” The consumer alleged that an auto dealer forged his signature on a vehicle purchase agreement by affixing his printed name rather than his actual signature, making him the primary buyer instead of a co-signer. After the consumer disputed the debt — submitting supporting materials including a driver’s license bearing his true signature, a handwriting expert’s report, and a sworn statement from the friend involved in the transaction — the CRAs initially removed it from his credit report but reinserted it after the dealer and the financing company confirmed the transaction was authorized. The consumer then sued the CRAs for allegedly violating Sections 1681e(b) and 1681i of the FCRA by, among other things: (i) failing to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of his credit report; (ii) failing to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation of the disputed information; (iii) failing to delete information found, after reinvestigation, to be inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable; and (iv) reinserting information into the consumer credit file that had previously been deleted.

The court applied a recent 4th Circuit decision, which held that disputed information is “actionably” inaccurate under the FCRA only where it is “objectively and readily verifiable as mistake- or error-free.” Here, the court found the forgery allegation fell outside that standard because the FCRA does not impose a duty on CRAs to make a legal determination as to whether the consumer’s signature had been forged. The court explained that this type of “complex fact-gathering and in-depth legal analysis” goes beyond a CRA’s obligations under the FCRA. The court distinguished a Missouri federal court decision involving a straightforward identity theft case, noting that here the consumer’s own involvement in the transaction made the dispute fundamentally more complex.