Background Check Company Sued For Calling Samuel Jackson A Sex Offender
from the no,-not-that-one dept
Consumerist points us to the news that a guy named Samuel D. Jackson (not L.) has initiated a class action lawsuit against Infotrack, a background check company, because it claimed that he was a sex offender. The only problem? Infotrack got confused over its Samuel Jacksons, and didn't bother to do much to disambiguate them. That the guy they called a "sex offender" was only four years old at the time of the supposed "crime" apparently didn't set off any alarm bells at Infotrack. In fact, Jackson claims that the company told him this kind of thing happens often enough in cases where people have "common names." In this case, Infotrack didn't even check middle names, as the actual offender is named Samuel L. Jackson... though is not the famous Samuel L. Jackson. Thankfully, however, it appears that movie studios didn't rely on the same background checks in determining whether or not to employ the actor, or the class action lawsuit might have become even more entertaining.
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Filed Under: background checks, class action, samuel jackson
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Samuel L Jackson wasn't in "Trouser Snakes on a Plane".
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Forget Snakes
[/S.L.J.]
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http://classactionlawsuitsinthenews.com/class-action-lawsuit-complaints/infotrack-information- services-class-action-lawsuit-complaint-over-alleged-sex-offender-reporting/
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Background Checks through InfoTrack and lawsuits
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/08/25/Infotrack.pdf
Those of you who think it is funny, should consider that you have not yet been screwed over by these so-called background check companies and credit reporting agencies.
My credit report states that I have had an *ACTIVE* J.C.Penny account since I was 14 years old. And other stuff which is wrong, but it keeps reappearing after being corrected numerous times. Trust NO ONE!
There is really too much information out ther about most everyone, including you the reader, which is going to bite someday.
Your local government is the worst offender, it is staffed by lazy, overpaid idiots, who would not last 15 minutes on a REAL job; consider the DMV for example!
Great place to gather identify theft info: Facebook........
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The names match... good enough.
I wonder how these companies manage to keep clients with such crappy "research".
It would be interesting for anyone who is a client of theirs to run their top execs names and see what the reports say...
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Because when the misidentify one of us regular people, its not a big deal he can always apply for another job somewhere else.
But when your falsely labeling rich/powerful people, they tend to make enough noise at the country club to get an investigation launched.
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Why not libel?
libel
1) n. to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others.
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Re: Why not libel?
This is a pervasive pattern of negligent behavior. I don't think you realize how truely BAD it is for any aggregation company like this to match people base on an impartial name. It's bad enough to match people on just their full name.
This is just so painfully wrong (and mathematically incorrect) to anyone that's ever done this sort of work.
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People willing to believe
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Judged by Whoever
That's because we still ignore the dilemma created by the old 'opt-in' debate and so hundreds of stupid companies are collecting unreliable data on you. And you are not informed this is happening, have no chance to 'opt-out' until it's annoyingly too late, and no real control of who has what information.
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Loss of Freedom...
It's profitable for these purveyors of dis-information to have a very large pool of data. Never mind if it's correct; lets just be able to brag that we have the goods on 90% of Americans.
There should be a way to sue these idiots out of existance.
Perhaps a new law that allows the individual to sue individuals at corporation who either willfully or through negligence allow this sort of thing to happen.
I bet a couple of $1,000,000+ lawsuits against the morons that run these businesses will either:
Make them check their data - Thorougly
or
Put them out of business
I opt for the latter...
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