Defense expert Ulzheimer opines that there are many ways to identify credit repair disputes; for example, credit repair disputes are frequently delivered by U.S. mail in “large, white, plastic bins, hundreds per bin.” Id. at 20. Often times, these letters all have the same postmark, the same address format, and the same letter template. Id. According to Ulzheimer, “the most common and prevalent evidence” of credit repair is when a dispute displays a “mismatch between the [address of the] postmark and the consumer’s actual address.” Id. In addition, letters sent by credit repair companies are often created with “letter generating software,” such that they are worded identically with only slight variations in grammar or typographical errors. As a result, Ulzheimer asserts that “a template letter can also reasonably suggest the consumer is using a credit repair company.” Id. at 20, 23. Mr. Ulzheimer added that credit repair organizations attempt to conceal themselves because “credit reporting agencies enjoy the right to disregard disputes they believe to be frivolous, which would include more credit repair disputes.” Id. at 21.

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Trans Union argues that when a credit repair clinic sends a dispute on a consumer's behalf, the agency's duty to reinvestigate the dispute is not triggered because the consumer has not notified the agency of their dispute “directly.” See 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A) (requiring that the consumer “notifies the agency directly” of a dispute before the agency is required to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation). It advances a grammatical argument, noting that the word “directly” is an adverb which therefore must modify the verb “notifies,” such that the consumer must personally notify the agency of any dispute. ECF 193 at 42-43. Most courts, however, have refused to hold that involvement by a credit repair agency is invariably fatal to a FCRA claim. To the contrary, several lower courts agree that if a credit repair organization assists a consumer in sending a dispute, but the consumer remains at least somewhat involved in the process, the dispute is still “direct” under the statute. See Klotz v. Trans Union, LLC, No. 05-4580, 2008 WL 2758445, at *5 (E.D. Pa. July 16, 2008) (McLaughlin, J.) (explaining that if a plaintiff used a CRO to find problems in her credit report, but then reviewed the documents, checked them for accuracy, and sent them to the credit reporting agency, that consumer would be eligible for relief under the FCRA); Rivera., 341 F.R.D. at 347 (“In assessing whether a dispute came ‘directly' from a consumer, courts have generally reasoned that a consumer who was involved in either the drafting, finalizing, or sending of the dispute letter has sent the letter ‘directly' even if he had assistance in doing so. Only where an individual had no role in preparing, reviewing, or sending the letter, does he fail to satisfy the direct requirement.”) (emphasis added). As recently formulated by one district court, “[m]ere assistance in preparing a letter does not prevent the consumer from sending the letter. To hold otherwise would impose a requirement more rigid than necessary to ‘confirm[] that the disputes' are ‘legitimate' - the function of the direct notification requirement.” Henry v. Freedom Mortgage Corp., No. CV-19-01121, 2020 WL 8921079, at *4 (D. Ariz. Apr. 27, 2020) (citing Warner v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., 931 F.3d 917, 918-19 (9th Cir. 2019)). 

It is only when consumers play virtually no role in disputing their credit files that courts find the dispute not to be “direct.” See e.g., Turner v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., No. 16-360, 2017 WL 2832738, at *1, *8 (N.D. Ohio June 30, 2017) (finding the dispute was not direct when nine derogatory accounts were disputed and plaintiff did not write, review, or sign the letter); Cohen v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, No. 18-6210, 2019 WL 5200759, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 13, 2019) (“The Court is confident, however, that a consumer has not ‘directly' contacted a credit reporting agency when, as here, she merely signs up for a credit repair service and then has no further involvement with, or even knowledge of, the disputes submitted putatively on her behalf.”). So, for example, if a credit repair company helps a consumer draft a dispute letter, but the consumer prints that dispute letter at home, reviews it, and mails it, then that person would not be barred from relief under the FCRA

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