Consumer complaint received 2015-12-13
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: OH
Product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit reporting company's investigation
Sub-issue: No notice of investigation status/result

Complaint:
I monitor my credit report using XXXX XXXX. While checking the collections section of my report on XXXX XXXX, I discovered a collection agency was incorrectly reporting on my credit file. I filed a dispute to have the collection removed with Equifax in XXXX 2015. The investigation was completed in XXXX 2015. The company was removed but I never received any documentation from Equifax confirming the date of removal. I only realized that it was no longer reporting on my XXXX XXXX account. 

In the same month the company re-appeared on my report in XXXX XXXX as an unpaid collection to Equifax only. I thought maybe it was an error and would be corrected on it 's own. The account was still showing on my report in XXXX 2015 so contacted the collection agency. They told me to dispute the collection again with Equifax because they did n't have any record of my file in their system to remove. I contacted Equifax to dispute the file and the customer service representative never submitted my dispute request. 

In XXXX I realized the company was still falsely reporting on my credit so I decided to contact a lawyer to pursue legal action. Once my lawyer spoke with the collector, they removed themselves from my credit report & backdated the date of removal. My lawyer informed them that we were requesting monetary compensation for the damage done to my credit and the denials I received for XXXX credit applications I submitted. Their legal department requested that I provide a copy of my credit report as proof that they were reporting incorrectly after XXXX 2015. 

I contacted Equifax & requested a copy of the dispute report I filed in XXXX. They said they had no record of my dispute request ( although you can see that an inquiry was pulled by Equifax on their website for the day that I called to submit the dispute ). I asked if a manager would be willing to pull the call so they could hear that I requested a dispute be submitted, but Equifax refused & said all they can do is send me the original dispute results from XXXX 2015. The original dispute report says nothing about me submitted a dispute against the company nor does it show the date when the collection had been removed. 

The Equifax representative stated that Equifax does n't have a way to see when a collector contacts them to have their account removed from any credit file. I know this is false because I have received previous showing confirmation that a collection was removed my from report. I believe that Equifax is removing collectors from credit reports & backdating the report date to help the collector avoid lawsuits. This hypothesis is based on the other thousands of complaints submitted by others with similar experiences with Equifax. I 'd like to find out who I can report my complaint to regarding my concerns with Equifax & if they are able to help me obtain the documentation needed to continue my legal pursuit with this collector.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation