If Equifax issues a report saying that I owe X, and I contact them with proof that this was a fraudulent loan, and they continue issuing that report... how is this not criminal libel?
The typical individual is not engaged in the political process, and if they pay attention to this subject, they do so for an ephemeral amount of time. Individual voter's anger has no consequence.
Our system is optimized to privatize gains and socialize losses.
Curiously, political pushes for reform never advocate for getting rid of the corrupt laws, but rather creating a whole new regulatory regime whose corporate giveaways will only become apparent down the line.
While medical providers do seem to take this to ludicrous, my understanding is that there's an underlaying common law principle concerning actions taken on behalf of someone in an emergency, and it's not just medical providers to whom this applies.
When my partner was pregnant, the OBGYN's office would send us small little bills despite us having paid our copay's. The bills ranged from $40-$200 and did not indicate what the bill was for, listing it as something generic "misc services" for instance. I called down there once and asked what the bill was for and the person I spoke to could not tell me. So, I didn't pay any of them switched OBGYN's.
Second story, the partner had incredible stomach pain... we ended up in the ER, paid the co-pay, etc. A couple months later I get a bill for 1k for seeing an out of network doctor. I call the insurance company and ask if that's correct and this is what they told me: That the hospital had a habit of sending out fraudulent bills, and that they had a legal settlement with them that they weren't even allowed to contact the patients directly.
It was literally just a cash grab.
I know that courts move slowly and judges are often depressingly technological illiterate, but I have absolute confidence that I could put together an incredibly convincing panel of experts who would define "reasonable procedures" in a way that would run wholly afoul of the SOP of the major credit reporting agencies.
By my quick non-attorney reading I think you'll be arguing under 1681o, and still stuck showing actual financial damages for having been denied a loan or whatever. Point being they've legislated themselves out of the straightforward tort of libel by 1681h (e).
> Held: Only a plaintiff concretely harmed by a defendant’s violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act has Article III standing to seek damages against that private defendant in federal court.
Per the Court, this means something like you were provably denied credit on the basis of the incorrect reporting, and you either didn't have an opportunity to explain yourself or your explanation was not accepted in favor of the information from the credit reporting agency's information. This is a very, very high bar to clear and is made even more difficult by the fact that almost any agreement of substance includes a mandatory binding arbitration clause. Thus, you don't even get the chance to go to court.
(Many businesses lauded here on Hacker News have such clauses, so even the "good" entrepreneurs can't resist taking away rights to the courthouse from their users.)
More coverage and links to the decision at SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/transunion-llc-v...
Partly because there is also some procedure for challenging credit reports. I'm going to try and find the blog post about it...