Identity Theft Victim Seeks Order Compelling AT&T to Answer Her Discovery Requests

Linda Surrency seeks an order compelling defendant AT&T to provide “complete answers” in discovery to her 10 interrogatories and 13 document requests, said her motion Tuesday (docket 8:23-cv-02323) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa. Surrency’s Fair Credit Reporting Act complaint alleges AT&T, Equifax and the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange were “plainly deficient” in their investigations of Surrency’s credit reporting dispute over identity theft (see 2310160035). Surrency learned that she was the victim of identity theft when she was informed that a credit reporting agency (CRA) was associating her with an AT&T account that was fraudulently opened in Texas under her name. In light of the undisputed facts and the plaintiff’s allegations, the "core factual issues" in this case pertain to how she “came to be associated with this fraudulent account,” why AT&T requested a consumer report about her and why the CRA defendants refused to stop reporting that the account belonged to her, said her memorandum in support of her motion to compel discovery. Surrency has issued discovery requests to AT&T regarding these “central factual issues,” but carrier “has refused to fully provide "responsive information and documents,” it said. AT&T has asserted “that it has virtually nothing to discover because the fraudulent account was actually owned by one of its corporate siblings,” it said. If true, this fact about the account's ownership “may change or limit” the scope of AT&T’s required responses, but it doesn’t “completely relieve it of any discovery obligation,” it said. The carrier has some information about this account that would permit Surrency “to begin to determine how and why the theft of her identity led to at least one CRA to report that she had an AT&T account, plus “how and why CRAs persisted in their reporting that she was liable on that account,” it said. AT&T’s explanations for why it has nothing to discover “actually demonstrate that it has at least some information and documents” that are responsive to Surrency's discovery requests, it said. She asks this court to compel AT&T “to provide them,” it said.