Consumer complaint received 2021-04-02
Company: NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
State: ID
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report
Sub-issue: Credit inquiries on your report that you don't recognize

Complaint:
In mid-XXXX, my husband and I submitted an online application to Navy Federal Credit Union to refinance our mortgage. Part of the application process was to agree to pay for them to make an inquiry on our credit, which we and they did, and the inquiry was reported by XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. However, they made a second inquiry without our consent ; it was reported by XXXX  on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, when I noticed the second inquiry, I contacted ( via email ) the loan officer and loan processor who had been helping us ( XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX, respectively ), but neither responded to me. 

Ours was what I assume to be an unusual situation, where our original application somehow got " deleted '' ( I'm not sure how, it didn't happen on our end ) and our information was then re-entered ( by NFCU ) on a new application with a new number. ( Our original loan application # was XXXX, and the second # was XXXX ). Mistakes were made when they entered the information for the second application, one of which included them increasing our requested amount by {$100000.00}. I noticed this immediately and contacted them about it, and pointed out other inconsistencies where necessary, because they had already sent us new disclosures with the incorrect information included. They eventually got the information on the second application corrected, but we ended up not refinancing with them because the interest rate offered was much higher than expected. 

When I contacted XXXX XXXX via email ) on XX/XX/XXXX after noticing the mistakes and high interest rate listed in the second application, she replied, " The reason for the rate is there was no credit report inside this application, I was able to pull the credit report from the other application, as soon as I find out what product you want ARM or FIXED, I can send out new disclosures. '' Given this response ( and the fact that I'd already stated several times we wanted a fixed rate loan ), I'm assuming that the second credit inquiry was made because when they set up the second application for us ( after somehow deleting our first application and then entering some incorrect information on the second ), the information from our initial credit inquiries wasn't transferred over, at least not initially. 

It seems to me that not allowing customers to proceed with loan applications without agreeing to and paying for a credit inquiry is a good control that should prevent unauthorized and/or duplicate credit inquiries, but as I understand it from NFCU, what happened with our accidentally-deleted application was unusual for them. I understand they're extremely busy right now and was patient throughout the process, even after all the errors ; however, our credit should not have been run a second time due to their mistake.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation