Lawsuits have ensued after TransUnion lost two jury trials for the company’s failure to use adequate identifying information regarding terrorist alerts that are appearing on consumer credit reports.

On August 25th, 2020, A man in Pennsylvania, filed a class action lawsuit against TransUnion in federal court, alleging that the bureau violated the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when it mislabeled him as a terrorist on his credit report. This mislabeling occurred because the man simply had the first name of two individuals on the terrorist watch list. Previously, TransUnion had two other lawsuits concerning the same misreporting that led to punitive damages verdicts, including a record verdict under the FCRA.

Back in March 2020, the plaintiff in the case, Ahmed Al-Shaikli, was seeking pre-approval for a mortgage. His applications were denied based on information located in his credit report. When Ahmed requested copies of his credit report from the three bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, he noticed that TransUnion contained information that the the other two bureaus did not have. According to his complaint, Ahmeds TransUnion report claimed that his name matched two people on the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs).

SDN’s are individuals that are prohibited from business transactions in the United States for national security reasons. In the complaint, the matches were stated to be incorrect. One of the names matched Ahmeds first name, but not his last and the birthdate of this first person was nearly 20 years earlier than that of Ahmed. The second name also matched his first name, and according to the reports from TransUnion, had a birthdate of more than 35 years earlier than his.

Ahmed is not on the OFAC SDN list nor is he on any other government watch list. He is a lawful United States permanent resident who proudly became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and had also served in the U.S. military as a contractor.

According to the complaint, Ahmed has reason to believe that TransUnion sold credit reports about him with these false and inaccurate terrorist connections to 11 organizations from February 2019 through April 2020.

Jim Francis, a partner at Francis Mailman Soulmilas, P.C., who is representing Ahmed in these claims, has stated that: “

Despite TransUnion having Mr. Al-Shaikli's full name, address, social security number, and date of birth, it appears that the company ignored most of that information, and instead associated him with the terrorist watch list because his first name was Ahmed"

Despite these findings, and TransUnion being hit twice for the same conduct, they still continue to carelessly use the same loose name-matching logic. Ahmed is not the only one to suffer from this similar extreme defamation.

Ahmeds complaint alleges that TransUnion violated the FCRA by willfully failing to follow reasonable procedures to ensure the maximum possible accuracy of the credit reports it sold. As the lead Plaintiff in the class action, Ahmed seeks to represent all people residing in the U.S. and its Territories about whom TransUnion

Mr. Al-Shaikli's complaint alleges that TransUnion violated the FCRA by willfully failing to follow reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the credit reports it sold. As the lead plaintiff in the class action, Mr. Al-Shaikli seeks to represent: 1.) All people residing in the U.S. and its Territories about whom TransUnion prepared a credit report that included any OFAC record beginning five years prior to the filing of the lawsuit; 2.) the members of the first group whose TransUnion reports claimed they matched a person on the OFAC SDN list but that match was not a character-for-character match to their first and last names; and 3.) the members of the first group whose TransUnion reports claimed they matched a person on the OFAC SDN list but that person had a different year of birth than they did.

A mixed file, even if not to these extreme is a major violation and can cause punitive damages to a consumer. If you feel you have a mixed file, contact us for help. You could be entitled to a settlement.