Jeff Horwitz reports:
Mississippi has sued Experian, the world’s largest firm that collects detailed information about consumers to evaluate their financial trustworthiness. The lawsuit — and a separate investigation of the industry by 32 other states led by Ohio — represent a significant new legal challenge to the industry over allegations of paperwork errors and violations of consumer protection laws.
Errors can jeopardize people’s ability to get loans and pass job-related background checks. Experian has even wrongly reported that consumers are on a federal terrorism watch list, the lawsuit alleges.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood’s complaint accuses Experian Information Solutions of knowingly including error-riddled data in the credit files of millions of Americans, jeopardizing their ability to obtain loans, employment-related background checks and sensitive government security clearances.
The lawsuit against Experian was filed without fanfare last month in a Biloxi state courthouse and transferred to Mississippi federal court late last week.
Read more on FindLaw.
Parenthetically, I note I don’t see any mention of any FTC investigation of Experian over data security, so I’m not sure what that means about the fate of the complaint I filed in April 2012 over their numerous data security breaches.