If a lender ever turned you down and you never found out why, this is the kind of thing that does it.
TransUnion has agreed to pay $8.31 million to settle claims that it sold credit reports carrying bankruptcy remarks on individual credit accounts when no bankruptcy filing existed in the public record. Not a bankruptcy on your file. A note attached to a single account saying it went through one. Same damage, half the visibility.
About 57,000 people are in the class. Claims close October 30.
Here is how the money splits. Roughly 21,000 people are in what the settlement calls the no-bankruptcy group, meaning no bankruptcy showed up in the prior 10 years at all. They get $100 automatically, no form required, and they can file a claim for up to $1,000. The other roughly 36,000 are in the aged-bankruptcy group, and they get about $350, but only if they file. TransUnion denies the allegations and settled to end the case. The final approval hearing is December 2.
So the $900 difference between the automatic payment and the full claim is a form. Most people will not fill it out. That is the part the settlement math quietly counts on.
Now the bigger point, because most of you reading this are not in the class.
A bankruptcy remark on a tradeline is not a small clerical smudge. It tells every lender pulling your file that a specific account went through a bankruptcy proceeding. It sits in the remarks line under the account, which is exactly where nobody looks. You can scroll past the public records section, see it empty, feel fine, and still be carrying the flag on three accounts.
Nobody at the bank calls to tell you. You just get a worse rate, or a smaller line, or a denial letter with a generic reason code.
Do this. Pull your TransUnion report at AnnualCreditReport.com, the free government-authorized site, and read the remarks or comments line under every open and closed account. Not the summary. The account detail. If a remark says the account was included in bankruptcy and no bankruptcy appears in your public records, you have found the same defect this settlement is about.
Then dispute it twice: once with TransUnion, once with the lender that reported the account. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, both have to investigate. Do it in writing so you have a dated record. And pull Equifax and Experian while you are in there, because a furnisher that sent the wrong remark to one bureau usually sent it to all three.
If you did get a notice with a claim number and PIN, file by October 30 at the settlement site, brooksbankruptcyclassaction.com. Ten minutes for up to $1,000 is a better hourly rate than almost anything else you will do this month.
One thing worth being clear about: this settlement fixes a payout, not your file. Getting a check does not delete the remark. That still takes the dispute.
If the error already cost you, our credit score tool shows what a clean file is worth in real APR terms, and our credit cards hub covers what to do while a dispute is pending. If you are shopping while your file is under repair, start at our credit card picks rather than applying blind and collecting hard inquiries.
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