AT&T’s Answer Denies Plaintiff’s Allegations of Willful FCRA Violations

AT&T denies the allegations in plaintiff Linda Surrency’s first amended complaint that AT&T violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act when it was “plainly deficient” in its investigation of Surrency’s credit reporting dispute over identity theft after a fraudulent DirecTV account was opened in her name (see 2310160035), said AT&T’s answer Friday (docket 8:23-cv-02323) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa. Surrency has since settled her FCRA claims against Equifax and the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange. AT&T contends that Surrency should be suing the “proper party,” DirecTV, and it repeated that contention in Friday’s answer. AT&T asserts seven affirmative defenses, said its answer, including that any AT&T investigation of Surrency’s dispute “was reasonable and any alleged violation of the FCRA was not caused by negligence or willful conduct.” AT&T “had no duty to investigate beyond any steps it took” in response to Surrency’s dispute because AT&T “had no actual knowledge of the identity theft” alleged by Surrency and didn’t receive “sufficient information and documentation” from her “to trigger a further investigation,” it said.