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360 DigiTech, Inc. Securities Fraud Investigation
Investigation Deadline: December 1, 2023
Jeremy and Jeremiah are identical twins with different first names, different middle names, different Social Security numbers, and different addresses. However, the two twin brothers share the same last name, the same date of birth, and their Social Security numbers are only one digit different. Throughout their childhood and teen years, being twins was something they always celebrated, and it (almost) always brought them positive attention because, after all, being a twin forces you to associate your life with one another, including your personality, interests, hobbies, and even your appearance.
But when Jeremy and Jeremiah reached adulthood and started applying for credit opportunities, they immediately discovered that being twins was a misfortune: their Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union credit reports were mixed! Before this point in their young lives, they had no idea that their shared genetic makeup would result in so much confusion for the credit bureaus. It wasn’t long after they submitted their first credit applications that they discovered that credit reporting agencies, including the “Big 3” credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union, had mixed their personal identification information, credit accounts, and hard and soft inquiries into one credit report. What began as a perceived simple mix up, turned into months and eventually years of credit denials, as they were unable to obtain credit for important life purchases, such as a new car and a home. After spending many months calling the credit bureaus and mailing multiple dispute letters in an attempt to separate and correct their mixed credit reports, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union failed to correct their credit reports and recognize them as two separate, independent people. As their frustrations and financial hardships mounted, they began searching for a credit reporting lawyer with experience assisting twins with mixed files.
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What is a Mixed File?
A mixed file occurs when one of the national credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and/or Trans Union commingles the credit histories of two different individual consumers into a single credit report. The result is a credit report that contains information belonging to two different consumers, bundled together as if those two consumers were the same person. More simply, a mixed credit file is where credit data is not matched to the correct consumer.
How Do Credit Reports Become Mixed?
The national credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union, collect and assemble billions of pieces of consumer credit data each day. Assembling includes associating that data with the correct consumer. Those associations are determined by computer and data algorithms tasked with comparing the consumer’s personal identification information associated with a particular credit account, collection account, or public record with consumer personal identification information associated with a particular consumer credit file. These comparisons are scored and ranked, and those rankings ultimately determine whether a particular credit account, collection account, or public record is matched with a particular credit file. These matching procedures are regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.
The computer and data algorithms utilized by the national credit reporting agencies do not require exact matches on personal identification information, such as full name, date of birth, address, or Social Security number, to qualify data as a match. In fact, and in order to take into account minor errors and omissions made by consumers and data furnishers, the credit bureau’s matching systems do not require exact matches for all of the various personal identification information associated with a given credit account, collection account, or public record. Thus, a credit reporting agencies’ matching system might, for example, match reported credit information to a particular consumer even where the reported Social Security number does not match all nine digits of the consumer’s Social Security number, where several other identifying items are an exact match. The flexibility in the credit bureaus’ matching system can result in similarly named consumers’ credit information being mixed into the same credit report. For example, Frances Harrington and Frances Hardin who were born in the same year but exactly one month apart and who share 8 of 9 Social Security number digits could be considered as the same person by the credit bureaus’ matching algorithms, despite the fact that they have different last names, were born in different months, and live in different states.
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