Case Results 

Federal court · filed 2023 · Credit bureaus, a lender and a bank

Fraudulent loan and credit card found while she was shopping for a mortgage

A charged-off consumer loan and a retail credit card, neither of them hers, surfaced on her reports at the worst possible moment — while she was being underwritten for a home.

She disputed twice by certified mail and filed an FTC Identity Theft Report. One bureau wrote back declining to investigate at all; another refused her request to block the fraudulent accounts under 15 U.S.C. §1681c-2.

Claims against one creditor were forced into private arbitration; the case was pursued in both forums until every defendant resolved.

Recovered across all defendants: $2,470,000.

Federal court · filed 2021 · Credit bureaus, a card issuer and a debt buyer

He had already proved the account was not his — in open court

A thief opened a subprime credit card in his name with a $300 limit, ran it to the ceiling and never paid. The charged-off balance was sold to a debt buyer and reported as his.

The debt buyer sued him in state court. He won a directed verdict — a judge ruled the account was not his.

The bureaus nonetheless “verified” the tradeline twice more after that.

Recovered across all defendants: $1,500,000.

Federal court · filed 2025 · Credit bureaus and collection agencies

Three apartments rented in her name in a state she had never lived in

An identity thief leased three apartment units in another state. The resulting collection accounts — ranging from $425 to more than $22,000 — landed on all three of her credit reports. She had never lived there.

She sent two rounds of notarized, certified-mail disputes enclosing her driver’s license and Social Security card. Every bureau that answered “verified” the debts.

One collector kept emailing demands into 2025 even though its own file showed the account had been opened from an out-of-state address and phone number.

Recovered across all defendants: $1,320,000. She had kept her credit frozen for a year and a half rather than use it.

Federal court · filed 2021 · An auto lender, a bank and credit bureaus

A $13,749 car loan, in a city where she had never bought a car

The first sign was a letter cutting her existing credit line because of “delinquent accounts” she did not have.

Her written disputes enclosed her license, her Social Security card, three police report numbers and an FTC identity theft report. The lender certified the loan as accurate to all three bureaus anyway.

The fraud ultimately required three separate lawsuits against three different companies.

Recovered across all three cases: $1,171,500.

Federal court · filed 2025 · Credit bureaus and multiple furnishers

The imposter crashed a rental car — and gave police the victim’s name

An imposter opened accounts with roughly ten creditors in his name, rented a car, wrecked it, and continued impersonating him to the investigating officer. Criminal charges were filed against the victim.

He sent three rounds of certified-mail disputes to each bureau over eight months, several notarized and enclosing his state ID and Social Security card.

One bureau deleted a fraudulent account, then put it back into his file without the notice of reinsertion the statute requires within five business days.

Recovered across all defendants: $1,150,000.

Federal courts · filed 2022–2024 · Credit bureaus, mortgage and auto lenders, an employment-data company

A whole identity taken over — five mortgages, two car loans, and a false work history

Someone in another state spent years opening accounts in her name, including five separate mortgage loans on property she had never seen. She found out when strangers began calling her about real estate she supposedly owned.

Three rounds of disputes to all three bureaus, enclosing her Social Security card, her driver’s license, her birth certificate and sworn affidavits from her parents, were largely ignored. Two deleted accounts were reinserted.

A separate employment-data company reported her as working two jobs six hundred miles apart at the same time. Her food-assistance benefits were cut off as a result.

Recovered across four related matters: $892,500.

Federal court · filed 2024 · Lenders, a debt buyer and credit bureaus

Recruited to a “credit repair” webinar, then saddled with $200,000 in loans

He handed his information to people running what he believed was a credit-repair seminar. They used it to take out four loans in his name — $75,000, $50,000, $45,000 and $40,000. One was later sold, so the same fraud appeared on his reports twice.

The FBI confirmed in writing that he was the victim of a federal crime and one of the fraudsters was indicted. He sent all of it with his disputes. Nothing came off.

One lender pulled his credit report twice more after it knew the loan was fraudulent — access with no permissible purpose.

Recovered across all defendants: $600,000.

Federal court · filed 2025 · A national credit bureau

His file was merged with his late father’s, and the bureau stopped scoring him

His father died in 2019. The bureau folded the father’s Social Security number, three of his addresses and an account coded “responsibility: deceased” into the son’s credit file.

Once the deceased marker attached, the bureau reported no credit score at all — while the other two bureaus were simultaneously scoring the same man at 763 and 793.

He was turned down for four credit cards in about eight weeks. One denial letter said flatly that the “applicant is reported as deceased.”

He could not even obtain his own file: the phone system hung up on him at least four times for failing identity verification, and a mailed request came back for “insufficient identification information.”

Recovered: $2,500,000.

Private arbitration · filed 2024 · A national credit bureau and a card issuer

A widow, reported as deceased and as a co-signer on a signature she never wrote

After her husband died following a seven-year illness, she found a credit card account in his name she had never known about and had never held a card for. Her name had been added to it on a forged signature.

The account was reported as charged off with more than $44,000 written off — and she was reported as jointly liable. The bureau then flagged her own file as deceased, and her score fell 46 points.

Three days of evidentiary hearing in arbitration followed before the claim resolved.

Recovered: $600,000. She had been denied a mortgage refinance and a loan to replace her gutters, three days apart.

Federal court · filed 2024 · A specialty reporting agency and a reseller

Reported dead to her own credit union — and it took a year to find the source

A deceased indicator passed from one company to a reseller and on to her credit union. She lost online and mobile banking, and a $5,000 debit purchase and a mobile-wallet transaction were refused.

Eight copies of her file disclosure, requested over roughly a year, all omitted the deceased marker — so she spent that year disputing with a company that was not the source of the error.

Recovered: $400,000.

Private arbitration · awarded July 2024 · A national credit bureau

A line of credit his father opened in 1976 turned up on his 800-score file

His father and stepmother opened the account decades earlier. Both had died. It appeared on his file in 2020, reported delinquent.

When he disputed to the bank, it responded by asking his deceased father and stepmother to sign and return an authorization so it could investigate.

He disputed to all three bureaus three times, including by certified mail. Each time, all three verified the account as his.

Arbitrator’s award against one bureau: $1,400,000, with fees and costs reserved. Claims against the remaining defendants resolved separately.

Federal court · filed 2022 · A national credit bureau and a bank

The bureau told him on the phone it was his brother’s account — then verified it as his

His brother’s charged-off bank card was reported in his file. A bureau representative acknowledged on a recorded call that the account belonged to the brother.

The bureau verified it anyway, and later declined to investigate further.

Recovered: $350,000. He was declined outright at one bank, given a higher rate at a second and a lower limit at a third.

Federal court · filed 2023 · A student-loan servicer and credit bureaus

An active-duty paratrooper, billed $341,117 on loans his father forged

A Staff Sergeant in the 82nd Airborne learned, after a credit denial, that hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal student loans were attached to his credit file. His father had forged applications naming him as endorser and routed every notice to addresses the father controlled.

He submitted nearly a hundred pages — police reports, a notarized identity-theft affidavit, an FTC report, military records with his real signature.

The Department of Education granted his forgery appeal. The servicer kept reporting the debt for another year, running more than seventy disputes through an internal process it called a “data conformity review.”

Recovered: $842,500.

Federal court · filed 2024 · A student-loan servicer and credit bureaus

She paid off her student loans. The servicer cashed the check and never recorded it.

A payoff check for $35,705.60 was deposited by the servicer and never applied. The reported balance did not go to zero — it grew, to $37,961.

One bureau refused to investigate at all, demanding Social Security verification she had already supplied under notarized oath.

Recovered: $574,499.

Federal court · filed 2024 · A collection agency and credit bureaus

A court had already ruled she did not owe the debt — and awarded her damages

A landlord’s $4,377 collection account stayed on her reports after a court dismissed the landlord’s claim, found a consumer-protection violation and ordered the landlord to pay her more than $14,000.

She sent six notarized disputes over two years. Every one came back “verified.”

Recovered: $379,000. She was denied housing while the account was still reporting.

Federal and state courts · filed 2023–2024 · Credit bureaus and a furnisher

Her husband filed bankruptcy. Her own current account was reported charged off.

Only her husband filed. The joint account was current and had never been missed, but it was reported as a charge-off with $10,738 past due against her.

Disputing made it worse rather than better.

In three weeks she was turned down for eight vehicle loans and received a risk-based pricing notice.

Recovered across the related matters: $340,000.

Federal court and two arbitrations · filed 2024 · A wireless carrier and credit bureaus

A duplicate account the carrier opened for itself, then billed her for

The carrier opened a second account number solely to apply promised statement credits, left it open and unused, and billed it. The balance reached $2,443.39 on an account she had never used.

Her FICO score fell roughly 145 points, and three collection agencies pursued her over nine months — even though the carrier had emailed her a statement showing $0.00 due and an agent had confirmed in writing that she would not be charged.

The consumer is severely disabled and largely homebound; the underlying dispute began when the carrier shipped equipment to the wrong addresses.

Recovered across three matters: $650,000.

Federal court · filed 2025 · A solar lender and credit bureaus

A six-figure solar loan on a house he had moved out of four years earlier

The loan, for more than $100,000, was taken out in his name against a property in another state that he had left years before.

Two notarized disputes identified exactly who had done it and when he had left the address. Every one came back “verified,” and the account then began reporting worse than before.

The lender also pulled his credit with no permissible purpose.

Recovered: $365,000.

Federal court · filed 2024 · A solar lender and credit bureaus

Two solar loans, roughly $80,000, on properties in a state he did not live in

Four disputes, all “verified.” His score dropped more than 80 points.

Two different lenders turned him down for a car loan in the same month, each relying on a different bureau — so the error had propagated everywhere.

Recovered: $334,000.

Federal court · filed 2023 · A mortgage servicer and credit bureaus

A CARES Act forbearance, reported as two months of missed payments

Congress required that a COVID-19 forbearance be reported as current. Hers was reported 30 and then 60 days late, with $17,576 past due.

The bureaus verified the delinquency repeatedly — while the servicer’s own letters confirmed the loan had not been delinquent in 24 months.

Recovered: $325,000.

Federal court · filed 2022 · Credit bureaus and card issuers

To make the account plausible, a furnisher aged him nineteen years

The accounts were opened when he was sixteen. He disputed and sent his driver’s license.

Two furnishers responded by changing his year of birth in the credit file from 2001 to 1982 — adding nineteen years to his life so that the account would fit. The bureau reported the change without question.

Recovered across the related matters: $640,000.

Federal court · filed 2022 · A debt buyer and credit bureaus

A credit card opened while she was still a minor

The bureaus reported two different opening dates for the account, both of them before she turned eighteen.

The debt buyer reported that it had “established the validity of the account.” Disputes ran for roughly two years without result.

Recovered across the related matters: $474,500.