From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

REDACT
Cory Groshek
Friday, January 30, 2015 4:29 PM
REDACT
URGENT: TWC Violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) / Immediate settlement
negotiation requested under threat of Class Action litigation

Hello REDACT ,

My name is Cory Groshek. I applied to Time Warner Cable (TWC) on 9/12/2014 for the position of Customer
Service Representative, completed TWC’s On Boarding process on 9/23/2014, worked my first day as a TWC
employee on 10/24/2014, and voluntarily resigned my position with TWC on 1/28/2015 at 5:14 PM CST.

If you are not the individual to whom this e-mail should be addressed, please do kindly forward it to whomever
within your organization it should be forwarded to, as the matter about which I am writing you today is of great
significance. Today, I am formally alleging that TWC is, and has been for quite some time now, in willful
violation of Federal Law, specifically Title 15 United States Code Section 1681, more commonly referred to as
the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Please know I am in possession of evidence, in the form of screen shots of every phase of your On Boarding
process and all of the documents TWC had me sign physically or electronically during its recruitment process,
which establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that TWC has willfully violated the FCRA and thus opened itself
up to the very real possibility of Class Action litigation. I will be happy to e-mail, mail, or fax you all of my
evidence as to TWC’s violations upon your request.

TWC’s violations of the FCRA are willful, and not simply negligent, because it is not reasonable to assume that
a company as large as TWC, especially with the support of well-known consumer reporting agency GIS, which
TWC procured its consumer report on me through and is also in violation of the FCRA in this case, was not or
is not well aware of its responsibilities and obligations under the FCRA. TWC’s On Boarding process in and of
itself makes it exceptionally clear that TWC is well aware of how serious a matter compliance with the FCRA
should be.

TWC’s willful violations of the FCRA include the following:
1) Its Background Check Authorization (otherwise referred to as a Disclosure & Authorization document, per
the language of the FCRA) is included in a long stream of On Boarding/job application-related information,
including requests for Personal Information and Candidate Information, which does not meet the FCRA’s

Case 2:15-cv-00157-RTR Filed 05/08/15 Page 1 of 5 Document 15-2

 requirement that the Disclosure be in a stand-alone document consisting solely of the Disclosure of that the fact
that TWC intended to request a consumer report on me for employment purposes
2) A request that I certify that all of the information provided by me to TWC was “true and complete” and that
“any false or misleading information or omission shall be considered sufficient cause for dismissal”. This
information is considered extraneous information, per the language of the FCRA, detracts from the intent of a
Disclosure document, and is in material violation of the FCRA.
3) A waiver of liability, with TWC seeking to “release from liability all persons and organizations furnishing
references or other information”. It is well-established in multiple Federal courts at this point that waivers of
liability included in Disclosure documents render such documents facially invalid under the FCRA, and also
that such waivers are also considered extraneous language, per the language of the FCRA. See the FTC’s
Advisory Opinion to Hauxwell from 6/12/1998: http://www.ftc.gov/policy/advisory-opinions/advisory-opinionhauxwell-06-12-98
4) In your document named TWCBackgroundCheck_Auth_v_5_2013.pdf, the combination of what should be
a stand-alone Disclosure document related to the request for a consumer report with a request for authorization
for a drug screening. The FCRA is explicitly clear that this combination of what should be two entirely separate
Disclosures and Authorization requests renders your consumer report Disclosure document facially invalid.
In case you are unfamiliar with how the FCRA works, there is no requirement that I suffered any “actual
damages”, such as lost wages, benefits, etc., for me to be a lead plaintiff in a Class Action suit against TWC,
only that my statutory rights under the law were violated, which they were. TWC’s violation of my statutory
rights under the FCRA is what gives me legal standing to sue.

Civil liability for willful non-compliance with the FCRA by TWC:

(a) In general
Any person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter with respect to
any consumer is liable to that consumer in an amount equal to the sum of—
(1)
(A) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or damages of not less than $100
and not more than $1,000; or
(B) in the case of liability of a natural person for obtaining a consumer report under false pretenses or
knowingly without a permissible purpose, actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or
$1,000, whichever is greater;
(2) such amount of punitive damages as the court may allow; and
(3) in the case of any successful action to enforce any liability under this section, the costs of the action together
with reasonable attorney’s fees as determined by the court.
Case 2:15-cv-00157-RTR Filed 05/08/15 Page 2 of 5 Document 15-2

 Per the Time Warner Cable Wikipedia page found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable, TWC
employed 51,600 employees as of 2013, and I am quite sure that this number has grown since then.
Additionally, due to the high turnover rate in TWC’s industry, I can reasonably assume that the number of
employees that have either been turned away by TWC for employment purposes due to the results of their
background checks or who have either left the employee of TWC voluntarily or been terminated only adds
exponentially to the number of employees or potential employees, current or former, that could be members in a
class versus TWC for its willful FCRA violations.

Please be aware that I, as the obvious choice for lead plaintiff in such Class Action litigation, have either two
years from the date of my recognition of TWC’s FCRA violations, or five years, whichever is more recent, to
initiate such litigation against TWC. This also means, if I am forced to initiate litigation, that I can (and will)
seek statutory and punitive damages, as well as reasonable attorney’s fees, on behalf of every potential class
member I can, dating as far back as five years (or however long is possible at the time such Class Certification
is sought or obtained).

Now, I am a reasonable person, and because I understand the leverage that I have in this situation, not only
against TWC, but also against GIS for running a background check on me, knowing full-well that the
authorization TWC obtained from me for such a background check was facially invalid, I would like to offer
TWC the opportunity to settle this matter one-on-one with me, out of court, and without me needing to involve
or hire a law firm to represent me.

Because TWC has much more information as to how many potential or existing employees, current or former,
may have been affected by TWC’s willful FCRA violations, I will leave it up to you and your legal team to
make an initial settlement offer to me, however, you must be aware that I am extremely familiar with every
shady negotiating tactic attorneys used in negotiations such as these, and I will not accept any attempts to
lowball me, intimidate me, or to stall our negotiations. In fact, I am really not open to very much negotiating at
all, as I not only believe we can reach a mutual settlement agreement within a week or two of this e-mail, but
require that we reach such an agreement no later than 5:00 PM EST on Friday, 2/13/2015.

If we do not reach an agreement, and if I do not have finished settlement paperwork in my possession and ready
for me to sign and return to TWC by said date and time, then I will have you know that, despite me having not
hired a law firm in this matter yet, I have already presented my evidence against TWC to two large law firms in
Madison, WI which intend to work in tandem to promptly sue TWC under the FCRA, should my one-on-one
settlement attempt fail.

The two law firms mentioned are presently unaware that I am entering into such one-on-one negotiations with
you, and for the time being TWC is under no actual threat to be sued, nor have any lawsuits or requests for
Class Certification been filed yet, however, I assure you that this situation will change very quickly should
TWC not comply with my request to settle this matter by or before the aforementioned date and time.
Case 2:15-cv-00157-RTR Filed 05/08/15 Page 3 of 5 Document 15-2

 I fully expect that I will at least receive notification from your legal team that you have received this e-mail and
is reviewing the situation within 48 business hours of this e-mail being sent to you. Should you not respond
within what I deem to be a timely fashion, I may make the determination that you are not being uncooperative
and are, in fact, being wholly unreasonable, and thus may proceed to skip any attempt to settle with TWC oneon-one and instead proceed directly to Class Action litigation.

I understand that you may be tempted to try to make this issue disappear for a token payment of, say, $500$2500, but I will have you know that such offers would meet my definition of “lowball” offers, and thus will be
rejected immediately. TWC is not going to avoid Class Action litigation with me unless I am offered a
substantial settlement amount which takes into account the totality of its FCRA violations. In case I am not
being clear, I expect that any settlement offer TWC makes to me be in the high six figures range, at least.

Although I realize that I am but one man, and that a settlement with me is not a guarantee that another potential,
current, or former TWC employee whose rights were violated by TWC will not come forward to sue TWC at a
later date, I am not going to budge on my six figure settlement requirement. TWC got itself into this mess and
will now need to dig itself out, one way or another, and paying me a six figure settlement while simultaneously
absorbing the risk that another individual may bring suit against it later is a chance TWC has, in my opinion, no
choice but to take here.

At this point in time, I can certify you that I have not spoken to anyone within TWC, or outside of TWC, with
regards to this matter, or with regards to TWC’s background check policies or FCRA violations, save for the
aforementioned law firms, which need me as a lead plaintiff to initiate any litigation, therefore if we settle oneon-one and someone else still brings suit against you at a later time, it will not be due to anything having to do
with me or what I know.

The best case scenario for TWC is that it settles with me, obtains my strict confidentiality in the matter and a
promise that I will never again seek employment with TWC, and never has to deal with this FCRA-related issue
again. Because I cannot, however, whether we settle one-on-one or not, guarantee that another individual will
sue TWC under the FCRA beyond this point, I will have you know that I will not allow my inability to make
such a guarantee a bargaining chip in our one-on-one negotiations. Make no mistake about it, I have all of the
leverage in this situation and TWC has none. Should I need to hire law firms to represent me, it has already
been established that they would do so on a 100% contingency basis, meaning that I have absolutely no
financial restrictions that would preclude me from suing TWC.

TWC should consider itself quite fortunate that it has not already become just another statistic in the long list of
companies which have paid out millions upon millions of dollars in FCRA-related Class Action settlements
over the course of the last few years and should find itself extremely grateful that I am kind enough to offer a
way out of having to become such a statistic, which I can assure you it will if I do not receive your full
cooperation in this situation.
Case 2:15-cv-00157-RTR Filed 05/08/15 Page 4 of 5 Document 15-2

 I fully expect that TWC will repay my kindness by making me a six figure settlement offer to prevent me from
hiring the law firms I have in mind, which would ensure that TWC will be paying out millions of dollars (think
upwards of $5-10 million) in what could easily become the largest FCRA-related settlement or verdict in the
history of cases such as this.

In conclusion, TWC can either pay me a high six figure settlement to make this issue disappear now, or it can
pay seven or eight figures to settle it later (and I know, for a fact, that TWC will settle at some point, as all
companies do in cases such as this). The choice is TWC’s – either pay me, or pay a minimum of $1000.00 to
everyone affected by its FCRA violations over the last five years, plus punitive damages and reasonable
attorney’s fees. I would prefer that we avoid what could be a multi-year trial, but if TWC wishes to be
combative and fight a losing battle, I am more than willing to do whatever is necessary to see that justice is
served in this situation.

REDACT
I eagerly anticipate your response to this e-mail. You may call me at
or e-mail me at
corygroshek REDACT to discuss this matter further and/or provide me with an e-mail address, fax number,
or physical address to which I can send my evidence against TWC.

Sincerely,
Cory M. Groshek

Case 2:15-cv-00157-RTR Filed 05/08/15 Page 5 of 5 Document 15-2