TransUnion Sued in Federal Class Action for Continuing to Misreport Innocent Consumers as Terrorists on Credit Reports Despite Previous Punitive Damages Verdicts Against It for Similar Misreporting

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A Pennsylvania man, represented by Francis Mailman Soumilas, filed a class action lawsuit against the TransUnion credit reporting agency last night in federal court alleging that the company violated the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act when it mislabeled him as a terrorist on his credit report based simply upon his having the same first name as two individuals on a terrorist watch list. This lawsuit follows two other lawsuits against TransUnion over the same misreporting that led to punitive damages verdicts, including a record verdict under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

In March 2020, the plaintiff in the case, Ahmed Al-Shaikli of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, sought pre-approval for a mortgage, but his applications were denied based on information in his credit report. After requesting copies of his credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, Mr. Al-Shaikli noticed something on his credit report from TransUnion that was not on his reports from the other two credit reporting agencies. According to the complaint, TransUnion's report claimed that Mr. Al-Shaikli's name matched the names of two people on the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's ("OFAC") list of Specially Designated Nationals ("SDNs"). SDNs are people prohibited from transacting business in the United States for national security reasons.

According to the complaint, the matches were incorrect. One of the names matched Mr. Al-Shaikli's first name, but not his last name. In addition, according to TransUnion's report, the birthdate of this first person was almost 20 years earlier than Mr. Al-Shaikli's. The second allegedly matching name, again, only matched Mr. Al-Shaikli's first name and, according to TransUnion's report, had a birthdate of more than 35 years earlier than his. Contrary to TransUnion's report on him, Mr. Al-Shaikli is not on the OFAC SDN list nor on any other government watch list, and his name does not match any name on the OFAC SDN list. In fact, Mr. Al-Shaikli was a lawful United States permanent resident who proudly became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and bravely served the U.S. military as a contractor.

To make matters worse, according to the complaint, Mr. Al-Shaikli 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.

"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," said Jim Francis, a partner at Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. which is representing Mr. Al-Shaikli. "It is astounding to us that, given the extremely defamatory nature of the information and having been hit with punitive damages twice for the same conduct, TransUnion continues to recklessly use the same loose name-matching logic." 

In 2007, a federal jury awarded a Colorado woman, Sandra Cortez, $800,000 after TransUnion sold a credit report about her in 2005 to a car dealership that falsely claimed she matched the name of a drug trafficker, Sandra Cortes Quintero, despite the women having different names and birthdates.

In 2017, a federal jury awarded a California man, Sergio Ramirez, and the class of people he represented, $60 million after TransUnion sold a credit report about him in 2011 to a car dealership that falsely claimed that he matched the names of two suspected terrorists despite having a different middle name and birthdate than those individuals.

Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C., attorneys represented Ms. Cortez, Mr. Ramirez, and the class of people he represented in their lawsuits.

"Despite two juries and two appeals courts telling TransUnion that its failure to use all available personal identifying information when determining whether consumers are suspected terrorists is a flagrant violation of federal law, TransUnion apparently continues to disregard its legal obligations," said John Soumilas, a partner at Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C., and one of the attorneys for Mr. Al-Shaikli. "As one of the federal judges who presided over Ms. Cortez's case said himself, TransUnion's actions when it comes to false terrorist alerts was—and still is— 'reprehensible.'"

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: (i) 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; (ii) 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 (iii) 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.

The lawsuit, captioned Al-Shaikli v. TransUnion, LLC, No. 20-cv-04155, was filed yesterday, August 24, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

About Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C.
Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. is one of the nation's premier consumer rights firms. The firm has obtained top verdicts and settlements, ground-breaking legal rulings and class certification in countless important consumer rights cases.  The firm represents consumers subjected to unfair credit reporting, debt collection, robo-calling, and employment and tenant screening, as well as general consumer fraud and deceptive practice matters. For more info, call 877-735-8600 or visit www.consumerlawfirm.com.

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