Michigan Consumer Credit Lawyers (“MCCL”) obtained a ruling against Xerox Educational Services in the case of Scharf v Xerox Education Services, (Docket no 5:14-cv-14322 USDC – Michigan) that it had willfully violated Ms. Scharf’s rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Scharf’s identity was stolen when an identity thief had forged Scharf’s name and signature to a student loan. Xerox Education Services serviced the loan and placed a trade line on Scharf’s credit report. When Scharf disputed that trade line, Xerox simply directed her to talk to the lender. Xerox refused to conduct any investigation into Scharf’s dispute.
“Proving a willful violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act is a difficult thing to do” said lead attorney, Gary Nitzkin. “In this case, I was able to depose someone from Xerox who had knowledge of their credit dispute policies and procedures. Although I concluded the deposition within 45 minutes, I had extracted all of the information I needed to prove that Xerox had simply disregarded Ms. Scharf’s right to a reasonable reinvestigation under the law.”
The next phase of the litigation, according to Mr. Nitzkin, is to assess damages. “We made a nominal settlement demand at the beginning of the case because Mrs. Scarf’s objective in this litigation was to have Xerox remove its trade line. Xerox absolutely refused to negotiate. Because we now have a ruling that Xerox willfully violated the law, Mrs. Scharf is now entitled to actual and punitive damages. We are no longer interested in a nominal settlement. Now, we will wait to see what the jury awards.”
Michigan Consumer Credit Lawyers is a nationwide consumer law firm that fixes people’s credit reports that are damaged by errors, inaccurate or incomplete information.
If you have inaccurate or incorrect items on your credit report, contact Attorney Gary Nitzkin at (248) 353-2882. We remove inaccurate and incorrect items from your credit report for free. Under the law, we make the defendants pay our fees and costs.
