Here is a pattern we see constantly: a background screener buys millions of criminal records in bulk, then "matches" them to applicants using little more than a first and last name. If you share a name with someone who has a record — and most of us share a name with someone — their history can become your problem at the worst possible moment: a job application, an apartment application, a licensing review.
The CoreLogic litigation
In Witt v. CoreLogic SafeRent, LLC and CoreLogic National Background Data, LLC, No. 3:15-cv-386 (E.D. Va.), the plaintiff alleged that a bulk criminal-records operation attributed similarly-named strangers' records to her, producing a background report showing an extensive criminal history that was not hers. A central dispute was whether the database companies were "consumer reporting agencies" covered by the FCRA at all — the defendants argued they were mere data wholesalers. The litigation ended in a class settlement reported to cover more than 200,000 consumers, with the defendants agreeing to operate under the FCRA's rules going forward. Related litigation against the CoreLogic background-data enterprise (the Henderson v. CoreLogic National Background Data line, also in the Eastern District of Virginia) produced a reported multimillion-dollar settlement of its own.
The legal principles at stake
Two ideas do the heavy lifting in these cases. First, the FCRA's definition of a consumer reporting agency is functional: if you assemble consumer information and furnish reports used for employment, housing, or credit, you are likely covered — a theme the Fourth Circuit reinforced in Henderson v. Public Data (2022) when it refused to let a data broker hide behind Section 230. Second, "maximum possible accuracy" under § 1681e(b) is not satisfied by name-only matching when richer identifiers — date of birth, SSN fragments, addresses — are available. Our circuit's accuracy standard, from Dalton v. Capital Associated Industries, asks whether a report is "patently incorrect" or misleading; a stranger's felony under your name is both.
If this happened to you
Get the report (you are entitled to it), dispute in writing to the screening company, and keep the rejection letter or adverse-action notice — then talk to a lawyer before accepting the outcome. These cases carry actual damages (the lost job or apartment, the distress), potential statutory and punitive damages for willful violations, and fee-shifting. We handle background-check cases for Maryland consumers and, where the screener is out of state, in the federal courts where these companies do business.