Consumer complaint received 2020-07-01
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: MA
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 have a credit card account on all 3 of my credit reports for a company named XXXX XXXX. In XXXX of XXXX there was an issue with fraud on my account in which multiple transactions occurred. I did not make an of those transactions because my credit card was stolen. I submitted a fraud claim with XXXX XXXX  at the beginning of XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX I received confirmation that they received my claim, a provisional credit was added to the account, an investigation has begun and should take 2-3 billing cycles to complete. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter stating that a credit of {$1300.00} has been reversed on my account because a copy of the charge was reviewed and deemed accurate. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter stating the remaining credit of {$750.00} should be considered permanent because the remainder of their investigation was in my favor. At this point I am very confused so I contacted XXXX XXXX  sometime in XX/XX/XXXX and asked why the entire investigation wasn't in my favor and I was told that two merchants said that I have done business with them before and so they closed the investigation and reversed the credits. I explained that I have not done any business and I gave nobody permission to do business with any of these two companies using my name or credit card. I was told that they would put in a request to reopen the investigation. Now we are entering the month of XXXX and I received any kind of letter stating the investigation was reopened. I called back to speak with someone to find out what is the status of my account and I was told that nobody ever submitted a request to reopen your investigation. So I am pretty upset at this point, I spoke to a supervisor and explained all of this to them and requested a call back to confirm my investigation will be reopened. They requested I send additional information so I sent a police report, an affidavit and a statement to them. Sometime at the end of XX/XX/XXXX someone reached out to me and informed me that they are going to reopen my investigation for the remainder of the charges. I specifically confirmed with the woman on the phone that they were going to include all transactions from these two merchants in the investigation associated with this account since they claim I've done business with them in the past. I was told yes sir will investigate everything for you. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter stating that they have completed their investigation and that they have re-issued the credits to my account that were reversed on XX/XX/XXXX and that they consider this investigation completed and closed. At the end of the year I started receiving credit alerts from XXXX XXXX and the reports were saying that I have multiple payments that were late, a balance of {$1300.00} and that my account has been closed and charged off. I don't understand this because based on the letters I received this account should have a {$0.00} balance and should be in good standing. I contacted XXXX XXXX  on XX/XX/XXXX, spoke with XXXX from the security department. She said that it should be a {$0.00} balance according to the notes and information that she is seeing. She stated that she will send this account up to her managers so that they can update the account properly on my credit reports. I called back on XX/XX/XXXX after not seeing my credit reports updated. I spoke to XXXX a fraud department supervisor and she sent me information for review to her managers so that my credit report and account can be updated correctly. She also requested someone to call me back to discuss this matter. On XX/XX/XXXX I spoke to XXXX in the security department and faxed a copy of my credit report to their credit bureau XXXXnteraction team along with a statement of everything that happened. On XX/XX/XXXX I spoke with XXXX a fraud protection specialist and he requested my investigation from XXXX be reopened. I received a letter on XX/XX/XXXX stating that they initiated an investigation, looked into my claim and determined that there was no fraudulent use of this account. I demanded a manager call me back to discuss this account and on XX/XX/XXXX I received a phone call from XXXX from the fraud team and she explained what happened with my account. She said that all transactions that were part of the original investigation were credited but the additional transactions from XXXX XXXX XXXX  were that should've been investigated as fraud should have been investigation so now they need to investigate those transactions and so she put in a request for copies of my statements to be sent to me since my account was now closed. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter from a collections agency called XXXX XXXX XXXX attempting to collect {$1300.00} on behalf of XXXX XXXX. I finally received the statements on XX/XX/XXXX, Highlighted those transactions in question and contacted XXXX XXXX  to reopen the investigation. I called that same day and spoke with XXXX ID # XXXX from the fraud security department and he put in the request to have my investigation reopened. I received a letter on XX/XX/XXXX stating that they have opened an investigation and listed the transactions and amounts of the transactions. I receive a letter on XX/XX/XXXX stating that they completed their investigation, looked into my claim and determined that there was no fraudulent use of this account. I contacted them immediately to find out what is going on. I spoke to someone in the security department about the investigation and they gave the same answer that they gave to me in XX/XX/XXXX that the merchant in question said that I have done business with them before and this is an outright lie and I have already given them proof in the form of a statement, an affidavit, a police report and the lost and stolen report of my credit card and drivers license. This should be more than enough evidence considering they've already credited a transaction from this merchant already at the end of XX/XX/XXXX. I explained all of this and requested this be reviewed again. With this pandemic going on I heard no responses by mail or phone from this company. I was finally able to get through to them on XX/XX/XXXX, as I spoke to XXXX about the status of this investigation and she informed me that the request was submitted on XX/XX/XXXX, was reopened on XX/XX/XXXX and they started to work on it on XX/XX/XXXX. I received a letter on XX/XX/XXXX stating that they completed their investigation, looked into my claim and determined that there was no fraudulent use of this account.So by this time whoever is reading this I hope you are as frustrated as I am with this company and how they do business. I apologize for this long letter but I had to get my point across and show you how ridiculous this whole process has been and now we are well over a year later. So needless to say I contacted XXXX XXXX   on XX/XX/XXXX and for the third time since XXXX of XXXX spoke to XXXX from the security department. I explained everything to him from start to finish and I think he remembered me because he thinks that this whole thing is unprofessional and wasn't handled properly from the beginning. He looked into what happened with this last investigation and it looks like there was a lack of proper communication in the form of the person that filed the request for this account and those transactions to be re-investigated never put in the notes that this merchant is linked to another investigation in which was found in my favor because all the necessary supporting documents were provided in order to complete the original investigation and that all the remaining transactions from XXXX XXXX XXXX were never included in the original investigation as requested so once again another investigation was not reviewed and completed properly. He submitted a request to have the claim reopened as well as having an investigator call me back to discuss this claim and what went wrong and to also discuss having my account reopened, taken out of collections, credited properly and to have any late payments or negative activity removed from my credit report. As you can read I have made many attempts to resolve and correct this account with no end in sight. I have disputed this account many times with all of the credit bureaus and have gotten nowhere during that process as well. This entire process has been frustrating and now its causing me personal problems because I have to explain this mess of a negative account to both my employer and landlord who check my account periodically. This needs to end now so I am reached out to you for help. Thanks for reading this extremely long letter and I hope we can resolve this matter ASAP.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation