A class action was filed in Pennsylvania against the TransUnion credit reporting agency alleging that the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when it mislabeled the plaintiff as a terrorist on his credit report based upon his name being the same as two individuals on a terrorist watch list. The pre-approval mortgage applications for the plaintiff, Ahmed Al-Shaikli of Mount Joy, Pa., were denied based on information in his credit report. Upon researching the problem, Al-Shaikli found that, although his first name matched the names of two suspected terrorists, he was at least 20 years younger than each of them. In addition, the plaintiff believes that TransUnion also sold credit reports about him with false information to 11 organizations. This isn’t the first time for a lawsuit of this type. In 2017, a federal jury awarded a California man and the class of people he represented $60 million after TransUnion sold a credit report about him in 2011 that falsely claimed he matched the names of two suspected terrorists despite having a different middle name and birthdate.
