TransUnion Fires Back, Says it Will Fight CFPB Suit

On April 12, 2022, in response to the lawsuit filed against it by the CFPB TransUnion issued a statement defending its actions and alleging the CFPB is the party that failed to act within the spirit of the previous consent order between the parties. In its statement, which can also be found here, TransUnion said:

"The claims made by the CFPB against TransUnion and John Danaher, a former executive, are meritless and in no way reflect the consumer-first approach we take to managing all our businesses. 

In January 2017, TransUnion entered into a consent order with the CFPB relating to how it markets TransUnion Credit Monitoring, a subscription product that offers consumers credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, as well as access to their credit scores. Shortly thereafter, as required by the consent order, TransUnion submitted to the CFPB for approval a plan detailing how it would comply with the order. The CFPB ignored the compliance plan, despite being obligated to respond and trigger deadlines for implementation. In the absence of any sort of guidance from the CFPB, TransUnion took affirmative actions to implement the consent order.

We have been in compliance with our obligations and we remain in compliance with the consent order today. Rather than providing any supervisory guidance on this matter and advising TransUnion of its concerns – like a responsible regulator would – the CFPB stayed silent and saved their claims for inclusion in a lawsuit, including naming a former executive in the complaint. Despite TransUnion’s months-long, good faith efforts to resolve this matter, CFPB’s current leadership refused to meet with us and were determined to litigate and seek headlines through press releases and tweets. The CFPB’s unrealistic and unworkable demands have left us with no alternative but to defend ourselves fully.

Over the last several years, and under the direction of new leadership, TransUnion has led the credit reporting industry in making significant changes aimed at benefitting consumers and increasing transparency in the credit reporting process."

insideARM Perspective:

In addition to accusing TransUnion of "duping consumers", within the last 60 days the CFPB has called medical debt a "doom loop", accused auto lenders of holding personal items ransom, said a student loan servicer lied, and referred to credit bureaus as "a cartel".  It's hard to tell whether using this inflammatory and divisive rhetoric is merely an attempt to seek headlines or whether there's some other purpose behind this shift away from civility. 

Suffice it to say, TransUnion's statement paints a completely different picture than the one illustrated by the CFPB's complaint. It seems TransUnion is ready to get into the ring with the CFPB and make its version of the facts known, and it will be interesting to see what surfaces as the fact-finding portion of this lawsuit commences. We will keep you posted with developments as they occur.