In Marna Paintsil Anning v. Capital One Auto Fin., No. 19-cv-01686-KAW, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128039, at *8-9 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2019) , Judge Westmore said that an FCRA Plaintiff can get past the pleadings on an FCRA Re-investigation claim where the Plaintiff can allege specific inaccuracies with reporting, no response from regarding the dispute, and that the credit report remains unchanged.
Defendant contends that Plaintiff has not alleged that Defendant did not conduct a reasonable investigation. (Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss at 7-8.) Defendant, however, relies on cases that did not allege any plausible facts as to the claim. For example, in Berberyan v. Asset Acceptance, LLC, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant could not collect on her account without offering “proof of the right to collect,” even though no such requirement existed. No. CV 12-4417-CAS (PLAx), 2013 WL 1136525, at *5 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 18, 2013). In such circumstances, it was unclear how the defendant had not performed a reasonable investigation. Id. Likewise, in Iyigun v. Calvary Portfolio Servs., LLC, the plaintiff failed to even identify the inaccuracies at issue. No. CV-12-8682-MWF (JEMx), 2013 WL 950947, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 12, 2013). The Court finds the instant case more comparable to Fischer v. SunTrust Mortgage Inc. There, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had inaccurately reported the debt on his [*9] credit report as a charge off. No. CV-15-2075-PHX-JJT, 2016 WL 2746978, at *1 (D. Ariz. May 10, 2016). He further alleged that despite receiving notification and supporting details of the dispute, the defendant took no action and made no changes to the reported information. Id. at *4. Thus, the plaintiff had “allege[d] specific inaccuracies with [the defendant’s] reporting, indicate[d] that he did not receive any response from [the defendant] regarding his dispute, and allege[d] that his credit report remains unchanged at the time he filed his Amended Complaint.” Id. Such facts were sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss. Here, Plaintiff has provided specific details of the alleged inaccuracies, and stated that Defendant continued to report inaccurate information even after Plaintiff disputed the accuracy of the information being reported and requested that Defendant conduct an investigation. (See FAC ¶¶ 12-13, 18.) At the pleading stage, and given Plaintiff’s pro se status, the Court finds this sufficient to allege the lack of a reasonable investigation. This is particularly the case where, without the benefit of discovery, Plaintiff is unable to get further information about what Defendant specifically did in the investigation.