Consumer complaint received 2021-04-27
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: FL
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account information incorrect

Complaint:
I recently received an alert on my credit report that I was 150 days past due on my XXXX XXXX. No one had contacted me prior to placing this on my credit report. Not only that, I was under the impression that these accounts do not report to the credit bureau. Before I signed, I asked that question to the sales representative and they told me that it does not. I should have known that was a lie after I realized that the whole timeshare was a scam. I have not been able to book an actual reservation since I signed for the timeshare years ago, and especially now during COVID. Any time that they have had an " issue '' receiving payment, they have called my phone and I made the payment over the phone immediately. The payments were automatically drafted from my account, so the only time that I received a phone call was when they claimed to have an issue. Yet, when I called them about this 150 days past due, they claimed that they called my girlfriend 's phone and not mine. Yet, when my girlfriend called, the first representative did not even have the correct number for her and wanted her to " update '' the number. When asked why they were suddenly reporting to the credit bureaus, they said that they started reporting on XX/XX/XXXX for " everyone ''. How convenient. They then told me that they sent the account to XXXX XXXX XXXX in XXXX and directed me there. I never received any correspondence from the collection agency until I called them recently. The only correspondence I have received from them is dated XX/XX/2021. Yet, the account was supposed to have been sent in XXXX?!. The collection agency then told me that they do not report the account, they only get the money to bring the account current and then transfer back to XXXX. I then called XXXX back and tried to understand the situation because we have never had a problem making a payment. We even offered to pay them if they would remove the late payments because we had not been told about them. They were very nonchalant, rude and dismissive. My girlfriend was told that we needed to pay them and then dispute and see what they would do. She asked for this to be in writing before she would pay them and then they changed and said they can't do that. So if you get the money first then you will but because we want that in writing first, you can't. The whole timeshare has been a scam. You all said you don't report, but now all of sudden you do. We have both checked our phone logs and have had no contact from you all regarding missed payments. The only time we received anything from the " collection agency '' was this week. This issue could have been resolved months ago had we actually received any correspondence. How did they know that we had not fallen on hard times or anything due to COVID? No one reached out and told us that the card was not working and conveniently they started reporting to the credit bureaus and now want full payment. On top of the fact, that we have never been able to utilize the timeshare since we acquired it due to " unavailability '' on our requested dates. And we weren't even going during peak times. The whole experience has been a scam and then to have a " mortgage '' reporting 150 days past due is quite ridiculous. And the credit report does not even show any on-time payments. This cost me almost 40 points on each of credit reports XXXX Equifax and XXXX XXXX and I lost a business deal due to this. I tried to work with XXXX but they do not care. We have been paying for over two years for nothing and now have a " mortgage '' of XXXX past due. The timeshare was suppose to only cost XXXX but we have only paid XXXX over two years. Its ridiculous. I feel they blatantly allowed the account to be behind to report it negative. Now they not only get the late payments from us, but also the fees they have tacked on through their XXXXNTERNAL collection agency. We were willing to pay but they refuse to provide any documentation in writing that they would remove payments or update the account accordingly.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation