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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

100% agree, except the impersonated person is impacted when their credit score eventually gets screwed and they can no longer get loans themselves. So, in that regard, they are also a victim.

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Although I think it is more accurate to call them a victim of something like slander by the credit agency, in that case. I mean, I’m not sure exactly what the laws are around slander, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some cutout for cases in which the person actually believed the lies they were repeating, but if an organization represents itself as an expert in people’s trustworthiness it obviously has a heightened responsibility to verify what it is repeating.

Credit reporting agencies have immunity from slander claims unless you can prove malice.

So you've found the problem. If they are immune from the crime, they won't stop practicing it.

My understanding is that in most cases, slander/libel is never a crime anyway.

It's merely a tort (wrong). It never rises to the level of a crime. The few instances/places where slander is a crime in the US (historically or otherwise) are very problematic and subject to abuse.

Perhaps this specific kind of slander should be criminal, but it might be the only kind that should be. Not only would you need to justify that philosophically, but somehow convince legislators to make it that way (at the federal level, I should think).

It'd be a tough journey.

Well, ok. There's no need to make it a literal crime. Those companies just need to be responsible for correcting the damage they cause.

Don't forget compensating the injured party for any consequential losses. Which in this case might be a house or the income from a good job. See how fast they clean up their act if they can be held responsible for six or seven figures of damages every time they make a serious mistake.

I don’t think it is that tricky philosophically; they are representing themselves as experts on a topic so, they have a responsibility to ensure that they have a professional level of competence in it. Just like doctors and civil engineers.

Agreed that getting legislators to do anything about it will be a pain, though.

Would them ignoring a few certified letters asking them to contact you to correct slanderous significant errors in your information be enough to show malice?

That’s what a dispute is. It’s required by the FCRA.

The impersonated person is impacted because the credit agency is lying about them to other people.

The point is that the impersonated person shouldn't have these fraudulent items reported on their credit. That's the crux of how the responsibility of cleaning up this mess is absolutely on the wrong person

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