Ever go to a job interview and think it went great only to find out you didn’t get the job? Could this be because the companies you are applying to are actually looking at your credit history? You may think this could never happen, but a class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Western New York alleges that Wegmans, a Rochester, New York food retailer, violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when it used a third- party company to run credit reports on both job applicants as well as current employees without obtaining permission.
The lawsuit was filed on December 27, 2016 and was brought by two employees of Wegmans. They allege that Wegmans failed to give proper notification to job applicants and employees before obtaining their credit reports. Under the FCRA, employers are required to obtain permission from job applicants and employees before they can access their credit history.
We all know the drill. We go online to apply for a job. A disclaimer box pops up requiring us to acknowledge that we have read and understood the disclosure. We then are able to continue to the website to apply for the job. In this lawsuit, Plaintiffs allege that the release that prospective employees signed when applying for a job did not include a disclosure that Wegmans would obtain a credit report. Under FCRA, job applicants have a right to obtain their credit reports and have any errors corrected.
Checking your credit report
There’s one way to find out if employers, or anyone else has pulled your credit report. On the bottom of every credit report is a history of every person, or company, that has pulled your report. This only lists pulls in the past two years. You can obtain a free credit report, one per year, by logging on to www.annualcreditreport.com.
If you find discrepancies on your credit report or that someone or some entity has pulled your report without your knowledge, call or email us at Credit Repair Lawyers of America, toll free at (855) 956-2089 or email us directly at [email protected].
Employer opening Credit report document in letter envelope.
