Consumer complaint received 2022-11-27
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: MO
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Information belongs to someone else

Complaint:
This is a case of identity theft. Someone fraudulently opened a retail credit account with XXXX XXXX in my name. I was already on alert because someone had previously attempted to open a similar retail credit account with XXXX in my name, but I was already a XXXX XXXX XXXX Bank customer and they correctly identified that the new account request was suspicious and contacted me for authorization. 

XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, operated by XXXX XXXX, failed to flag the request as suspicious and opened the fraudulent account in my name. Thanks to active credit monitoring, I was rapidly alerted to the new account as soon as it was opened. 

I immediately contacted XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Bank to report the fraud. This was difficult because the contact information for the creditor shown on the credit reports is not accurate. The contact information shown on Equifax credit report is a non-working phone number. The contact information shown on the XXXX and XXXX credit reports is XXXX XXXX XXXX which is a different division of XXXX XXXX  and can not assist with XXXX XXXX accounts. None of the three credit report agencies accurately reports the correct contact information for the creditor of the account on their credit reports. 

Never the less I was able to track down the correct contact information, and reported the fraud within days. The new account was locked pending " investigation '', but this was the only action XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX took. They claimed that they would send me a fraud affidavit to fill out, but it never arrived. In a follow up call two weeks later, they stated they would resend the fraud affidavit, but it still never arrived. When requested to email the affidavit, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  claims that " they dont have email ''. 

I then submitted disputes with all three credit agencies to get the fraudulent account removed from my credit report. The dispute with XXXX allowed me to see that the account had been opened with the address " XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX NJ XXXX ''. This is an address thousands of miles away from my home in XXXX  XXXX. I have never lived at this address, or anywhere in New Jersey. Furthermore XXXX XXXX  shows this address is a commercial office complex. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  accepted this address for opening the account even though it did not match my credit file address, and was not the type of address that would be reasonable for this type of account. 

The Equifax dispute came back with no action taken. According to the report " We verified that this account is yours ''. They obviously did no such thing. Equifax clearly didn't even contact the creditor since the phone number they have for the creditor is non-working. Equifax failed to make any sort of an investigation whatsoever. Likely, all they did was request XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX account data electronically and verify that it matched what was in their own records. This sort of verification is not an investigation, and is only capable of detecting errors in the credit bureau 's own records. It is completely useless for investigating fraud and account ownership records because by definition the creditor 's records will match the credit bureau 's. This is not a clerical error, it is account fraud. 

I attempted to file a police report with the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, but was told that they don't accept identify theft cases, unless I can " prove it ''.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation