On April 4, 2022, in the case titled Marc Stephens vs Equifax, et al, Plaintiff Marc Stephens filed a Federal Civil Lawsuit against Experian, Equifax, Synchrony Bank, and PayPal, pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., (“FCRA”).

In his civil complaint, Stephens is seeking an injunction, damages, and equitable relief due to violations of FCRA by Defendants, regarding disputes over allegedly false reporting on Stephens’ credit reports, which dropped his credit score from 820 to 680.

Stephens causes of actions includes, (1) Defamation of Character, (2) Willful Noncompliance with FCRA, (3) Negligent Noncompliance with FCRA, (4) Common Law Fraud, (5) Breach of Contract, and (6) Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.

On December 6, 2020, without permission, Paypal withdrew money from Stephens’ PayPal banking account. On February 2, 2021, Stephens sent PayPal an email explaining the situation, and PayPal immediately noticed they were in error. Instead of correcting the error, PayPal shutdown Stephens’ PayPal account.

Stephens was unable to withdraw money from his PayPal account to pay bills. Over $40,000 was initially withheld by Paypal. Then around $1,500 was withheld by Paypal for 6 months.

On March 26, 2022, PayPal placed a hold on Stephens’ deposits of over $21,000.

On May 22, 2021, PayPal, without permission, switched Stephens’ PayPal MasterCard billing to Automatic Pay. There were multiple fees withdrawn from Stephens account, including a $375 transaction from Paypal.

Stephens spoke to a PayPal representative, who pointed Stephens to PayPal’s User Agreement, which Stephens said he was never aware of a User Agreement.

Stephens read over the entire 56 page User agreement, and found out PayPal's financial scheme.

“The reason why PayPal is constantly holding funds is so that they can invest customer’s funds to generate ‘interest revenue’, says Marc Stephens.

According to PayPal’s User Agreement: “PayPal is not a bank and does not itself take deposits. You will not receive any interest on the funds held with PayPal. PayPal combines your PayPal funds with the PayPal funds of other PayPal users and invests those funds in liquid investments in accordance with state money transmitter laws. PayPal owns the interest or other earnings on these investments”.

On August 23, 2021, Plaintiff Marc Stephens submitted a dispute to Defendants Experian, Equifax, and Transunion requesting for the original signature on the contract for a Synchrony Bank/PayPal MasterCard account which appeared on Stephens’ credit report.

Transunion deleted the items. Experian and Equifax never responded to Stephens’ request. Instead they switched the account numbers around creating two new accounts.

On December 7, 2021, Stephens spoke with the creditor Defendant Synchrony Bank fraud department. The fraud department, and customer service, agreed that there was two separate accounts reporting inaccurate information on his credit reports with Experian and Equifax.

A Customer Service employee at Synchrony Bank, agreed to remove both accounts from Stephens’ credit report, but the accounts were never deleted.

For several months, the Defendants willfully ignored Marc Stephens’ request for the original signature on the contract for both accounts listed on his credit report.

On April 4, 2022, Stephens filed a civil complaint against PayPal, Snychrony Bank, Experian, and Equifax.

On July 22, 2022, Equifax, who is represented by, Robert T. Szyba, Esq. of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, filed their Motion to dismiss Stephens’ complaint.

On August 29, 2022, Paypal, who is represented by Ryan L. DiClemente, Esq., and Kellie A. Lavery, Esq., of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP, filed a motion to compel arbitration or dismiss Stephens’ complaint in the alternative.

On the same day, Synchrony Bank, who is represented by Pawel Maziarz, Esq., of Reed Smith LLP, filed a motion to dismiss Stephens’ complaint with prejudice.

Despite being served with notice, Experian never responded to the Complaint.

Marc Stephens, and the legal team of the defendants, went back and forth with oppositions and reply briefs in a display of some of the most highly complex legal arguments regarding the Fair Credit Reporting Act, common law, constitutional rights, defamation, supreme court rulings, and online user agreements.

Despite Stephens not being a lawyer, and representing himself in the case, he showed an extremely high level of legal intelligence on every subject. I’m sure the Defendant’s legal team were either highly impressed, intimidated, or even embarrassed.

On February 24, 2023, Federal Judge of the District Court of New Jersey, MADELINE COX ARLEO ruled in favor of Marc Stephens.

Judge Arleo is the same judge that ruled in favor of Stephens in his $6 million case against the City of Englewood and Englewood Police Department.

Judge Arleo opinion states, “The Equifax Defendants argue that the Complaint (1) fails to satisfy the threshold requirement of demonstrating that Synchrony and/or PayPal furnished inaccurate information to the consumer reporting agency (“CRA”) and, (2) fails to establish that Plaintiff notified them of the dispute at issue in this matter. Synchrony separately argues that these claims should be dismissed because Plaintiff has not alleged that the CRA notified Synchrony, a furnisher, of the dispute as required by the FCRA. The Court disagrees.”

“Accordingly, Plaintiffs FCRA claims, Counts Two and Three, may continue against EIS and Synchrony”.

“The Equifax Defendants make a passing argument in their motion that Plaintiff has not stated the other elements of a § 1681e(b) claim, but do not meaningfully engage or cite any authority to support this argument. The Court therefore declines to dismiss the § 1681e(b) claim at this time”.

“If after discovery, Plaintiff cannot establish that a CRA notified Synchrony, then Synchrony may renew this argument”, says Judge Arleo.

Stephens was successful in keeping the main parts of the case in federal court for “Willful” and “Negligent” Noncompliance with FCRA against the defendants for ignoring his request for the 'original signature' on a contract, which Stephens is demanding over $1 Million in damages.

The remaining cause of actions will be handled in Arbitration, which Stephens still has a great chance of winning.

In total, Stephens is requesting $4.5 Million in damages. The court did not issue a discovery schedule yet.