Class Action Targets Experian over Account Security
"Identity theft" as a term has always struck me as a terrible description of what is happening. A bank falsely reporting to a credit agency that I am a debtor (when a criminal hands over some exclusively public information about me to get credit) seems like a slam-dunk definition of defamation. It meets the 4-part definition I'm aware of with (1) statement of fact (2) made to a 3rd party that (3) harms the reputation of the plaintiff while (4) acting negligently. (4) is of course the hardest to prove, but surely if all the information a bank asks to verify identity is in the public domain, that seems pretty clear to me.