- Case
- Migliore v. Vision Solar LLC
- Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- Citation
- No. 24-1679 (3d Cir. Oct. 22, 2025), cert. denied, No. 25-1194 (U.S. June 15, 2026)
- Decided
- October 22, 2025
- Bottom line
- In the Third Circuit, a lender that pulls your credit for a loan in your name may have a permissible purpose even if you never applied, unless you can tie the lender to the fraud.
Background
According to the complaint, a door-to-door salesman for Vision Solar offered Eva Migliore, a senior citizen in New Jersey, “free” solar panels. He never showed her any paperwork. Months later, her son learned that she supposedly owed about $99,750 on a 25-year loan from Cross River Bank, arranged through the Sunlight Financial platform. The documents had been sent to a misspelled email address and digitally signed in her name. Migliore alleged the salesman created a fake email account and forged her signature. The lenders obtained her credit reports during or shortly after the sales visit.
Migliore sued Vision Solar, its CEO, and the two lenders. Against the lenders, she alleged violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and of 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(f), which prohibits obtaining a consumer report without a permissible purpose. The district court dismissed the claims against the lenders, and she appealed. (Vision Solar, LLC went bankrupt, and the opinion notes she abandoned her remaining claims against the Vision Solar parties on appeal.)
What the court held
The Third Circuit affirmed in a published opinion by Judge Ambro, joined by Judges Bibas and Montgomery-Reeves. The court described the facts with evident sympathy but held that her claims against the lenders failed.
On agency, the court held Migliore had not plausibly alleged that the salesman was acting as the lenders’ agent, so his deception and forgery could not be imputed to them under the Consumer Fraud Act.
On the FCRA claim, the court looked at § 1681b(a)(3)(A), which permits obtaining a report “to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer.” It contrasted that language with § 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i), the “legitimate business need” purpose, which expressly requires a transaction “initiated by the consumer.” Because Congress included that limit in one provision and not the other, the court concluded there is no requirement that the consumer initiate the credit transaction. The lenders obtained her report in connection with a credit transaction involving her, and her argument that they acted to defraud her failed for the same agency reasons.
The Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 15, 2026.
Our take
This is a hard decision for identity theft victims, and we think it reads the statute too narrowly in a way that matters. The FCRA’s permissible-purpose rules are a core privacy protection. Under Migliore, a forged application can supply the “credit transaction involving the consumer” that justifies the pull, so long as the lender itself is not tied to the forgery. The textual argument from the “initiated by the consumer” language is real, but the phrase “involving the consumer” can fairly be read to require a transaction the consumer is actually part of, not one fabricated in her name. Migliore sought Supreme Court review, and the Court declined to take the case.
The opinion’s limits are also important. It turned on the absence of plausible agency allegations, and it did not hold that a lender may ignore obvious red flags. Claims that a lender knew or should have known of fraud, or that the seller acted as its agent, remain viable on the right facts. The case also does not address the lender’s separate duties once a consumer disputes the account or reports identity theft.
What it means if your report is wrong
If a loan or account appears in your name that you never applied for, act quickly: file an FTC identity theft report and a police report, dispute the account with each credit bureau and the lender, and ask the bureaus to block the information under § 1681c-2. After Migliore, a permissible-purpose claim against a lender in the Third Circuit (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands) will usually need facts connecting the lender to the fraud, such as a close relationship with the seller or warning signs it ignored. Gather everything you can about how the seller and lender worked together.
A free case review can assess how this ruling affects a claim, and there is no fee unless we win.
Sources
Primary
- Opinion (Third Circuit, via CourtListener)
- Supreme Court docket No. 25-1194 (certiorari denied June 15, 2026)
Commentary we reviewed
Updated November 1, 2026. "Our take" is the firm's opinion. This page is general information, not legal advice, and later decisions may change the law.