Comments on: Choicepoint’s Error Rate

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:27:41 +0000

Chuck,
I think you’re splitting hairs here. An error appears in a report ‘on your letterhead.’ You collect the information, and to some extent, vouch for it. As I understand it, you use outsourced labor to collect data from paper forms. Errors again ‘not your fault.’ Do you have numbers for how often errors are reported in your reports? How often those reports pan out and eventually result in a correction?
The errors may not be yours, but you make them easy to access.

By: Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:09:04 +0000

ChoicePoint made no errors in the report in the Tennessee case you cited. When a consumer contacts us about an “error in a ChoicePoint report,” we generally find the error is in the base public record over which ChoicePoint has no control. ChoicePoint consistently advises these consumers how to contact the government agency to correct the error. In compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, ChoicePoint investigates any dispute alleging an error in a ChoicePoint report and, when necessary, makes a revision.
– Chuck Jones, ChoicePoint

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:02:07 +0000

Nicko,
My understanding is that the Fair Credit Reporting Act enables companies to report on credit and only be liable for “willful misrepresentation.” You might imagine that the credit agencies will spend large amounts of money to ensure that the definition of “willful misrepresentation” is narrow.
See http://www.epic.org/privacy/financial/fcra.html for the act’s text.

By: Nicko

Nicko — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:42:39 +0000

So, to date I’ve not had the “pleasure” of dealing with the US credit reporting agencies but what I would like to know is this: if an institution is distributing inaccurate and disparaging information about me, I tell them so, they continue to do so and as a result I loose out, in what way does that not fit the definition of libel? Knowingly disseminating damaging falsehoods is illegal.
While I’m not usually one to try to enrich the contingency-fee litigators it seems to me that firms like Choicepoint need slapping about with a big fat class-action suit. When it starts to sting they might actually get their act together and take some steps to fix their databases.

By: Alexandre Carmel-Veilleux

Alexandre Carmel-Veilleux — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:04:21 +0000

Error rates denominators are frequently tailored to the error rate that is desired. For example, Choicepoint could also be using the total number of data fields as denominators in their rate and using individuals as denominators might well throw the error rate into the low teen percents, even with their very convenient definition of what an error is.
As anyone who’s ever had raw access to Choicepoint knows (they have an otherwise nice, SSL-encapsulated XML query system, client certificate mandatory), most credit report are fractional at best and frequently contain information which may be mutually exclusive.