Were you one of the 71,000 individuals who received a notice in the mail that Sterling Infosystems may have violated your rights when it ran a background check on you?
Recently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau settled its Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit with Sterling Infosystems. As part of the stipulated judgment against Sterling, Sterling must pay $6 million in monetary relief to certain consumers and a $2.5 million civil money penalty. The CFPB had alleged that Sterling (i) failed to ensure that public record information that was included in its background reports was complete and up-to-date, (ii) did not notify consumers that it was reporting public record information as required under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and (iii) reported adverse information about consumers outside of the timeframe allowed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
If you received notice of the stipulated judgment, then you may be entitled to share in the $6 million that Sterling has been ordered to pay. You will be sharing with upwards of 71,000 people. In addition to stipulated judgment payments, you may have other rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act as those rights relate to background reports that Sterling ran on you. Feel free to reach out to the consumer law attorneys at Weiner & Sand LLC to discuss those options. There is no cost for doing so, but keep in mind that your timeframe for pursuing your claim is limited under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.