Consumer complaint received 2019-05-24
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: NY
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:
Good afternoon, I have been through many disputes now, especially with Equifax, regarding my XXXX student loan reporting. Giving a brief background, this is regarding two 120+ day late payments being reported for XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. For 5 student loans, that totals 10 late payments. Now the issue is, I was granted forbearance for that time period and this by law MUST reflect on my credit reports. 

I reached out to XXXX asking for a letter ( that I am attaching ) showing all the dates I was granted this, and the late payments in question are in fact included in the letter under 'general forbearance '. After submitting this to all CRA 's, I have heard back from Equifax twice. The first dispute I submitted they did not attach my documentation, and it came back immediately that all my information being reported was correct. The second dispute took about two weeks and I received confirmation on XX/XX/XXXX. Equifax reached out to XXXX and the only changes made were comments under my loans stating 'Student payment deferred ', and all previous late payment activity were still present. I received 5 dispute confirmations all along those lines where the information ( payment history ) is apparently being reported correctly, and instead they would rather " notate '' that I had a deferment. 

In an official advisory opinion given by XXXX XXXX, this again is erroneous and he neglect to report correct information completely violates Section 623 ( a ) ( 2 ). 

As stated : " Section 623 ( a ) ( 2 ) of the FCRA addresses the duty to correct and update information by " furnishers, '' or persons who furnish information to consumer reporting agencies ( " CRA '' ) such as credit bureaus. In particular, this section requires a person that " has furnished to a consumer reporting agency information that the person determines is not complete or accurate '' to " promptly notify the consumer reporting agency of that determination '' and provide any information needed to make it complete and accurate. ( 1 ) Thus, on its face, this provision requires a furnisher to provide corrected or updated information to the consumer reporting agency that it had reported to originally. A furnisher that reports current information to a different CRA has done nothing to " correct and update information '' with CRA that possess the information that the furnisher has now determined is incomplete or erroneous. This duty extends to all student loan accounts reported to CRAs, regardless of whether they were accurate at one point, because the section requires the furnisher both to " update '' accounts as well as to " correct '' those that were erroneous when submitted to the CRA. 
Section 607 ( b ) of the FCRA requires CRAs to " follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of information '' in their consumer reports. It is our view that a CRA that refuses to accept updated and corrected information from a furnisher on student loan accounts, if it still maintains that information in its database, does not have in place " reasonable procedures '' to comply with this section with respect to such accounts. 

1. This duty applies only to a person that " regularly and in the ordinary course of business furnishes information to one or more consumer reporting agencies. '' At this point Equifax so far has accepted the position given by XXXX XXXX and I do not know of what to do to get correct reporting and these late payments removed from my credit reports.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation