Wray v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc. et al

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
____________________________________________
DIVON DANIEL WRAY,
Plaintiff,
vs. 	1:25-CV-1393
(MAD/MJK)
EXPERIAN INFORMATION SOLUTIONS, INC.,
EQUIFAX INFORMATION SERVICES, LLC, and
TRANSUNION, LLC,
Defendants.
____________________________________________
APPEARANCES: 	OF COUNSEL:
DIVON DANIEL WRAY
Albany, New York
Plaintiff, pro se
Mae A. D'Agostino, U.S. District Judge:
ORDER
Divon Daniel Wray ("Plaintiff") commenced this action pro se on October 7, 2025. See
Dkt. No. 1. Plaintiff's complaint alleges that Experian Information Solutions, Inc., Equifax
Information Services, LLC, and TransUnion, LLC ("Defendants"), three consumer credit
reporting agencies, violated various provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"). See
id. Plaintiff claims that unauthorized financial activity occurred under his name after his identity
was stolen in a data breach, and when he disputed the contents of his credit report, Defendants'
actions did not comply with the FCRA.1 See id. The complaint sets out five causes of action
under 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681b, 1681c-1, 1681c-2, 1681e, and 1681i. See id. Plaintiff alleges that
1 The complaint does not appear to allege that Defendants played any part in the data breach or
identity theft.
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Defendants violated the FCRA by: (1) failing to ensure the maximum possible accuracy of his
credit reports; (2) failing to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation after he disputed the contents of
his credit reports; (3) failing to block the reporting of information that resulted from the identity
theft; (4) failing to maintain reasonable procedures to prevent reinsertion of disputed information
deleted from his file; and (5) improperly disclosing his credit report. See id. For a more
extensive recitation of the facts, the parties are referred to Magistrate Judge Mitchell J. Katz's
Order and Report-Recommendation dated February 20, 2026, which recommended that Plaintiff's
complaint be dismissed without prejudice and with leave to amend. See Dkt. No. 5.
Magistrate Judge Katz determined that Plaintiff failed to plead any concrete injury from
Defendants' actions, which means Plaintiff lacks standing to sue. See id. at 6-9. Alternatively,
Magistrate Judge Katz recommended dismissal for failure to state a claim. See id. at 9-20.
Plaintiff did not object to the Order and Report-Recommendation.
In reviewing an order and report-recommendation, a district court "may accept, reject, or
modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge." 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). When a party properly objects to a magistrate judge's order and report-
recommendation, the district court reviews de novo the issues raised in the objections. See
Nambiar v. Cent. Orthopedic Grp., LLP, 158 F.4th 349, 358-59 (2d Cir. 2025) (citations omitted).
A proper objection must be timely, specific, and "not raise new arguments not previously made
before the magistrate judge." Id. at 359 (citations omitted). Objections reiterating arguments
already made to the magistrate judge are proper if they are timely and specific. See id. at 360-61.
When a party does not object, or do so properly, the court reviews the magistrate judge's
recommendations for clear error. See id. at 359-60.
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Because Plaintiff has not objected to the Order and Report-Recommendation, the Court
reviews it for clear error. For the reasons set forth below, the Order and Report-Recommendation
is adopted.
To demonstrate standing to sue in federal court, a plaintiff must plead an "injury in fact"
that is both: (1) "concrete and particularized"; and (2) "actual or imminent, not conjectural or
hypothetical." Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted). "For an injury to be 'particularized,' it 'must affect the plaintiff in a
personal and individual way.'" Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 339 (2016) (quoting Lujan,
504 U.S. at 560 n.1) (other citations omitted). For an injury to be "concrete," it "must be 'de
facto'; that is, it must actually exist." Id. at 340 (citation omitted). "[A] plaintiff must
demonstrate standing separately for each form of relief sought." TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez,
594 U.S. 413, 436 (2021) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). If standing is not
present, the Court cannot exercise jurisdiction. See California v. Texas, 593 U.S. 659, 668-69
(2021).
A pleading must also contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the
pleader is entitled to relief." FED. R. C IV. P. 8(a)(2). Under this standard, the pleading's "[f]actual
allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level," Bell Atl. Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citation omitted), and present claims that are "plausible on
[their] face[,]" id. at 570. A complaint that "pleads facts that are 'merely consistent with' a
defendant's liability" generally does not meet the pleading standard. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557). The Court must accept as true all well-
pleaded facts in the pleading and draw all reasonable inferences in the pleader's favor. See ATSI
Commc'ns, Inc. v. Shaar Fund, Ltd., 493 F.3d 87, 98 (2d Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). This
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presumption of truth does not extend to legal conclusions. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citation
omitted).
Pro se litigants' filings should "'be liberally construed,' . . . and 'a pro se complaint,
however inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted
by lawyers.'" Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S.
97, 106 (1976)). Accordingly, this Court must construe Plaintiff's pleadings "to raise the
strongest arguments that they suggest." Triestman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 470 F.3d 471, 474
(2d Cir. 2006) (citation and emphasis omitted).
In recommending dismissal of the complaint for lack of standing, Magistrate Judge Katz
determined that Plaintiff fails to plead "a concrete and particularized injury." Dkt. No. 5 at 6. A
plaintiff cannot establish standing on a FCRA claim by only alleging "a bare procedural violation"
of the statute, because "[a] violation of one of the FCRA's procedural requirements may result in
no harm." Robins, 578 U.S. at 342; see also Ramirez, 594 U.S. at 427 ("[U]nder Article III, an
injury in law is not an injury in fact. Only those plaintiffs who have been concretely harmed by a
defendant's statutory violation may sue that private defendant over that violation in federal
court"). As explained below, the Court agrees that Plaintiff's complaint fails to establish standing
as to each claim.
In the FCRA context, "not all inaccuracies cause harm or present any material risk of
harm." Robins, 578 U.S. at 342 (footnote omitted). Thus, Plaintiff's contention that his "credit
reports contain inaccurate, incomplete, and misleading information[,]" Dkt. No. 1 at ¶ 34, without
some allegation that the errors caused him concrete injury, is insufficient to demonstrate standing
on Count One. Although the complaint states in a conclusory fashion that the inaccuracies "are
detrimental to Plaintiff's credit profile[,]" id. at ¶ 20, bare allegations of a reduced credit score do
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not support standing under the FCRA, see Zlotnick v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, 583 F. Supp. 3d
387, 392 (E.D.N.Y. 2022) (citing Maddox v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon Tr. Co., N.A., 19 F.4th 58, 65
(2d Cir. 2021)) ("A lowered credit score in and of itself is not a concrete harm").
Likewise, Plaintiff's conclusory allegations that Defendants' actions "caused Plaintiff to
suffer concrete damages[,]" Dkt. No. 1 at ¶¶ 44, 51, with no specification of what those damages
were, do not support standing as to Counts Two and Three.
On Count Four, although Plaintiff generally alleges that Defendants "do not prevent new
furnishers from reinserting tradelines that Defendants had deleted in response to a consumer
dispute" and "reinsert information into consumers' files without . . . adhering to the requirements
of 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(5)(B)[,]" id. at ¶¶ 58-59, the complaint does not assert that these
purported FCRA violations actually injured Plaintiff in any cognizable way. Accordingly, the
complaint does not establish standing as to Count Four.
On Count Five, Plaintiff claims that his credit report lists numerous inquiries "that were
made without a permissible purpose as defined in 15 U.S.C. § 1681b[,]" and Defendants "failed to
remove these inquiries from Plaintiff's credit reports." Id. at ¶¶ 63-64.
First, the complaint lacks any explanation of why the purported disclosures were
impermissible. See id. at ¶¶ 61-64. The FCRA sets forth the circumstances where a "consumer
reporting agency may furnish a consumer report." 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(a). The complaint
essentially asserts that Plaintiff does not recognize the inquiries as they appear on his credit
report, but does not specify how the inquiries about his credit—or any disclosures that followed—
were impermissible. This fails to establish standing.
Second, "[t]he mere presence of an inaccuracy in an internal credit file, if it is not
disclosed to a third party, causes no concrete harm." Ramirez, 594 U.S. at 434. Thus, even if the
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credit report contains false information, Plaintiff cannot establish standing if the inaccuracies
were not disclosed to a third party. Although dissemination of an inaccurate credit report can
confer standing, see id. at 432 (determining that dissemination of a credit report containing
misleading information conferred standing because of its close resemblance to defamation and
reputational damage), Plaintiff does not appear to allege such dissemination. Count Five states
that third parties made a series of credit inquiries that Plaintiff does not recognize, which remain
on Plaintiff's credit report. See Dkt. No. 1 at ¶¶ 61-64. However, even if Defendants provided
Plaintiff's credit report in response to those inquiries, there is no allegation that those specific
disclosures contained inaccurate information when they were made. See id.
Ultimately, Count Five is devoid of allegations that Plaintiff suffered a concrete or
particularized injury due to Defendants' conduct, which means Plaintiff has not pled standing to
sue on that claim.
Because Plaintiff has not demonstrated standing for any of his claims,2 the Court must
dismiss the action without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See California, 593
U.S. at 668-69; Katz v. Donna Karan Co., L.L.C., 872 F.3d 114, 121 (2d Cir. 2017) (citation
omitted).
After carefully reviewing the Order and Report-Recommendation, the entire record in this
matter, and the applicable law, the Court hereby
ORDERS that Magistrate Judge Katz's Order and Report-Recommendation (Dkt. No. 5)
is ADOPTED for the reasons set forth herein; and the Court further
2 Magistrate Judge Katz also noted that Plaintiff's claims would have failed on the merits. See
Dkt. No. 5 at 9-20. The Court finds no clear error with that analysis.
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ORDERS that Plaintiff's complaint (Dkt. No. 1) is DISMISSED without prejudice for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and with leave to replead; and the Court further
ORDERS that Plaintiff may file an amended complaint within THIRTY (30) DAYS of
the date of this Order; and the Court further
ORDERS that if Plaintiff fails to file an amended complaint within THIRTY (30) DAYS
of the date of this Order, the Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment in Defendants' favor and
close this case; and the Court further
ORDERS that the Clerk of the Court shall serve a copy of this Order on the parties in
accordance with the Local Rules.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: April 20, 2026
Albany, New York
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