Julie Miller successfully sued credit reporting agency Equifax after trying unsuccessfully to fix significant errors on her credit report for two years. A jury awarded her $18.6 million dollars on Friday, July 26.
Equifax will likely appeal the verdict.
The lawsuit alleges that her credit report contained credit accounts that did not belong to her, incorrect collection information, and a social security number that was not hers. Miller contacted Equifax eight times between 2009 and 2011 to correct the errors.
“There was damage to her reputation, a breach of her privacy and the lost opportunity to seek credit,” Portland, Oregon attorney Justin Baxter told the Associated Press. “She has a brother who is disabled and who can’t get credit on his own, and she wasn’t able to help him.”
Miller first learned of the problem when a bank denied her a loan in 2009. She was able to fix errors in her credit report with other credit reporting agencies.
Julie Miller was not a victim of identity theft, Baxter told local news source Oregon Live. Another Julie Miller’s file somehow got mixed up with the Oregon woman’s file.
