Texas Company Settles FTC Fair Credit Reporting Act Charges

A Texas company has agreed to pay $3 million to settle with the FTC over Fair Credit Reporting Act charges that allege the company failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of tenant screening reports provided to landlords and property managers.  The inaccuracies resulted in some potential renters being falsely associated with criminal records.

The FTC alleges that since at least January 2012 through September 2017, among other things, the company used broad criteria to match applicants to criminal records, only applied limited filters to those results, and did not have policies or procedures in place to make sure the criminal record information contained in its tenant screening reports concerned the correct applicant for housing.

In addition to the civil penalty, the settlement also requires the company to maintain reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the information it includes about individuals in its consumer reports.  Further, the company will also be subject to recordkeeping and compliance monitoring requirements.

The terms of the agreement may be found here.  The FTC’s press release on the settlement may be found here.