Economists who know the credit system from the inside.
Two decades of credit reporting research, working knowledge of how bureaus and furnishers operate, and a consumer reporting agency we run ourselves. We have explained that system in 47 matters since 2001.
Dr. Michael A. Turner
Dr. Michael Turner is an economist and one of the nation's leading authorities on consumer credit reporting and credit risk scoring. For more than 25 years he has produced the empirical research that Congress, federal regulators and courts rely on to understand how credit data is furnished, reported, scored and used — and what happens when it is wrong. His work has helped open the door to credit for hundreds of millions of people, and he coined the term “credit invisible.”
He has served as an expert witness for 25 years and has been retained in 47 matters since 2001, spanning consumer reporting agencies, banks and card issuers, lenders and servicers, data-breach class actions and consumer arbitrations, as well as the CFPB and the California Department of Justice. He has given trial testimony in federal court in Maine and Vermont, been deposed in 16 cases and testified at 13 arbitration hearings, and has never been subject to a Daubert challenge. He has rebutted opposing experts from Accenture, PwC and former FBI analysts, along with numerous Ph.D. economists.
His 2003 research on fair credit reporting was debated in Congress, which adopted all seven of its recommendations into FACTA. His research also supported the data-industry side in Sorrell v. IMS Health (U.S. 2011), now a leading First Amendment precedent on data regulation. In data-breach litigation he was Sony Pictures Entertainment's expert in Corona v. Sony Pictures (C.D. Cal.), the class action brought by former employees after the 2014 hack. As co-founder and CEO of Verify4, a consumer reporting agency, he also brings first-hand FCRA compliance experience.
Areas of expertise
Selected matters
- ◆CFPB v. Experian Information Solutions (C.D. Cal.)
- ◆Hines v. Equifax Information Services (E.D.N.Y.)
- ◆Gordon v. TransUnion (E.D. Va.)
- ◆Norman v. TransUnion (E.D. Pa.)
- ◆Hill v. LexisNexis Risk Solutions (W.D. Mo.)
- ◆IMS Health v. Sorrell (D. Vt.; trial testimony)
- ◆Root v. American Express National Bank (JAMS)
- ◆Wyatt v. Wells Fargo and American Express (D. Alaska)
- ◆Ghassemi v. Citibank (E.D. Tex.)
- ◆Colorado UCCC Administrator v. Avant (Denver Dist. Ct.)
- ◆Sheffler v. Americold Realty Trust (N.D. Ga., data breach)
- ◆Corona v. Sony Pictures Entertainment (C.D. Cal., data breach)
Roles & recognition
- ◆Founder & CEO, PERC (Policy and Economic Research Council); PERC is a CFPB partner organization
- ◆Co-founder (2019) & CEO, Verify4, a consumer reporting agency
- ◆Testified five times before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services and its subcommittees, and before state senate committees in California, New Jersey and Texas
- ◆Has briefed or advised the Federal Reserve Board, the White House, the Council of Economic Advisers, the FTC, the CFPB, GAO and the FDIC
- ◆Member, DHS Data Privacy & Integrity Advisory Committee
- ◆World Bank International Committee on Credit Reporting; APEC Business Advisory Council Sherpa for credit information sharing; Asia-Pacific Financial Forum
- ◆Lead author, U.S. Consumer Credit Reports: Measuring Accuracy and Dispute Impacts (2011); research co-published with HUD, the World Bank Group and IFC, the Brookings Institution and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- ◆Projects in more than 25 countries on six continents
- ◆Ashoka Fellow · Affiliate Scholar, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Education
Ph.D., Political Science (International Political Economy), Columbia University · Master of International Affairs, Columbia SIPA · B.A., Economics and Political Science, Miami University · Executive Education, Harvard Business School
Patrick D. Walker, M.A.
Patrick Walker is an economist and data scientist specializing in credit risk modeling and the technical mechanics of credit scoring. For two decades he has served as an expert in FCRA, credit reporting and damages matters, focusing on score simulation, risk modeling and damages analysis: testing what an alleged error actually did to a consumer's credit outcomes.
He has led PERC's research since 2005 — on the FCRA, credit report accuracy, data-breach policy and alternative credit data — for regulators, industry and international development institutions, including large-sample studies of U.S. credit report accuracy and dispute impacts. With Michael, he has built production- and research-grade credit scorecards and reverse-engineered the FICO and VantageScore models, so they can show precisely whether a disputed tradeline moved a score, an approval or a price.
Patrick is also co-founder, President, CFO and Chief Data Scientist of Verify4, a consumer reporting agency providing consumer-permissioned income and employment verification from government wage data, and was previously Chief Data Scientist at VIEability. He taught econometrics and microeconomics at Duke.
Areas of expertise
Professional experience
- ◆Director of Research, PERC (2005–present)
- ◆Co-founder, President, CFO & Chief Data Scientist, Verify4 (2019–present)
- ◆Chief Data Scientist, VIEability (2014–2019)
- ◆Instructor in econometrics and microeconomics, Duke University (2000–2005)
- ◆Board Member and Chair of Strategic Planning, Credit Builders Alliance (2015–2021)
Selected publications
- ◆U.S. Consumer Credit Reports: Measuring Accuracy and Dispute Impacts, with M. Turner and R. Varghese (PERC, 2011)
- ◆Comparing FTC and PERC Studies on Measuring the Accuracy of U.S. Consumer Credit Reports (PERC, 2013)
- ◆Why Addition Is Better than Subtraction: Measuring Impacts from System-Wide Deletion and Suppression of Derogatory Data in Credit Reporting (PERC, 2021)
- ◆Potential Impacts of Credit Reporting Public Housing Rental Payment Data (HUD and PERC, 2020)
- ◆Is CROA Choking Financial Literacy?, with M. Turner and M. Staten (PERC, 2015)
- ◆Data Protection and Credit Information Sharing (PERC, 2017)
- ◆Give Credit Where Credit Is Due: Increasing Access to Affordable Mainstream Credit Using Alternative Data (Brookings Institution, 2006)
Selected speaking
Consumer Financial Litigation Symposium (Dallas) · FICO World · Experian Vision · CDIA Annual Conference · Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland and Philadelphia · U.S. Treasury Capital Access Innovation Summit · IFC (World Bank Group) credit bureau training · World Consumer Credit Reporting Conference
Education
M.A., Economics, Duke University · B.A., Economics (minor in Mathematics), University of North Florida
Full CVs and lists of matters are available on request.
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