Verdicts & settlements September 18, 2006: Virginia jury awards $350 to identity theft victim.(Sloane v. Equifax Information Services, LLC)(Brief article)

Byline: Virginia Lawyers Weekly Staff

Mrs. Sloane was the victim of identity theft and contacted Equifax on multiple occasions regarding the erroneous reporting of accounts that were in default that had been opened by the identity thief.

The evidence demonstrated that Equifax maintained two separate credit files under the same social security number for almost a year. One file was in the plaintiff's name while the other file was in the name of the identity thief. Each time the plaintiff applied for credit Equifax sent both credit files. This lasted for nearly one year until Equifax merged the two files into one. Mrs. Sloane filed two written complaints with Equifax that failed to clear up her problems. In fact, Equifax made matters worse by creating two reports for a second time and then switching the names so that the plaintiff's name appeared on the report for the identity thief and the thief had her credit report. At trial, Equifax denied any wrongdoing and claimed that the plaintiff did not suffer any real ...