T-Mobile, Experian Hit with Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit

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T-Mobile and Experian North America Inc. have been hit with a potential class action lawsuit over allegations that due to substandard security practices, more than 15 million T-Mobile customers had their sensitive data hacked.

Experian states in an FAQ about the incident that it discovered on Sept. 15, 2015 that hackers had accessed T-Mobile data housed on an Experian server. T-Mobile used Experian to conduct credit checks on its customers. As a result, anyone who applied for a T-Mobile prostpaid services or device financing between Sept. 1, 2013 and Sept. 16, 2015 might be affected.

Lead plaintiffs Brendan Moore and Matthew DeVito filed the T-Mobile/Experian data breach class action lawsuit on October 2, claiming that Experian notified T-Mobile about the data hack on or about October 1, and that Experian and T-Mobile were negligent in their duty to protect the confidential information of their customers.

According to the Experian class action lawsuit, personal information including names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses numbers and passport numbers were taken in the data breach.

Plaintiffs Moore and DeVito claim that they have already experienced suspicious activity related to the T-Mobile data hack. The class action lawsuit states that the plaintiffs have noticed that fraudulent home loan applications have appeared on their credit reports. The T-Mobile class action lawsuit claims that due to the security breach both the plaintiffs and future Class Members will incur actual damages in an attempt to prevent identity theft.

The T-Mobile data hack class action lawsuit alleges that the cell phone company misled the plaintiffs into believing that their sensitive information would be protected.

The plaintiffs have accused Experian of recklessly violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act, stating that “It was reasonably foreseeable to defendant that its failure to identify, implement, maintain and monitor the proper data security measures, policies, procedures, protocols, and software and hardware systems to safeguard and protect plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ consumer credit information would result in a security lapse, whereby unauthorized third parties would gain access to, and disseminate, plaintiffs’ and class members’ consumer credit information into the public domain for no permissible purpose under FCRA.”

Both Experian and T-Mobile have already offered two free years of credit monitoring and identity restoration services for consumers affected by the breach. Go to www.protectmyID.com/securityincident or call Experian at 866-369-0422 to enroll. Consumers are asked to enroll by April 30, 2016.

According to plaintiffs, however, two years of free credit monitoring is not enough.

The data breach class action lawsuit is seeking injunctive relief that would force Experian to notify all possible victims of the data hack and provide free credit monitoring to all future Class Members for at least the next six years. In addition, the plaintiffs are also requesting that Experian conduct on-going tests and audits in order to improve their security.

This is not the first time Experian has experienced a data hack. In 2012, a security breach attack on an Experian subsidiary exposed the Social Security numbers of 200 million U.S. residents.

Plaintiffs Moore and DeVito filed the T-Mobile class action lawsuit just one day after the cell phone company announced that the data hack had occurred and the private information of their customers used for credit checks had been stolen. The data breach class action lawsuit is seeking more than $5 million in damages from both Experian and T-Mobile to financially compensate potential Class Members.

Once approved, the T-Mobile class action lawsuit will be open to all Class Members who who applied for credit with the phone company between Sept. 1, 2013 and Sept. 16, 2015.

The plaintiffs are represented by Edward Anthony Wallace of Wexler Wallace LLP.

The T-Mobile Data Hack Class Action Lawsuit is Moore, et al. v. Experian North America Inc., et al., Case No. 1:15-cv-08771, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On Nov. 12, 2018, T-Mobile customers and Experian have reached a settlement which requires the credit monitoring company to pay $22 million to exit a data breach class action.

UPDATE 2: January 2019, the Experian data breach class action settlement is now open. Click here to file a claim.