Consumer complaint received 2023-12-02
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: NJ
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
This is a new financial crime complaint. 

If the vendor in the attached XXXX case is taken at its word, XXXX XXXX did receive in 4-6 weeks of the XXXX XX/XX/XXXX letter the {$63.00} that the vendor wrote was remedied because merchant has already issued a refund on XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX chargeback. 

The vendors two recent correspondences acknowledge twice more for a total of at least seven times in a year that the vendors contract with XXXX obligates it to repay the {$63.00} it admits it owed from its unauthorized transaction XXXX XXXX XXXX 

I paid all authorized charges, per my contract, on time and in full for the 10ish years I had XXXX credit card, which was closed about XXXX XX/XX/XXXX under verbal contract that this closure was permanent. 

XXXX in the past two months made arbitrary, capricious and malicious assault to ruin my excellent XXXX FICO, 100 % lifetime ( XXXX ) on-time payment to punish me for the vendors contract fraud with it. Suddenly, my FICO is XXXX fair, despite no debt except my monthly bills that I always pay in full, on time. 

I dont know why the bank is telling XXXX XXXX and presumably the others, that I owe the bank {$290.00} for the vendors proved {$63.00} debt to XXXX. I suspect the inflated sum adds late fees and interest tacked on retroactively after CFPB closed its prior case without a CFPB determination to back it up. 

I never have received a statement from XXXX ( its reply lied ) for this account it created without my authority, in violation of the Truth in Lending Act, solely for this vendors chargeback debt, after I closed my credit and savings accounts to end our relationship. This vendors {$63.00} debt had been credited for three months and was credited on my final statement that auto-paid in full on its due date. XXXX agent XXXX stated that my demand to close my compromised card would close the account permanently, and would require me to sign a new contract for a new card and account. I signed no new contract. 

The Fair Credit Billing Act and 12 CFR 1005 seem clear and precedented that Im not liable for a vendors contractual obligation to repay the lender for its unauthorized transaction I promptly reported as fraud. 

XXXX reply attached vendor documents 4 months late, per the Fair Debt Collections Act timetable -- that materially support my fraud testimony to the FBI ( under penalty of perjury ) and the FTC. Why does the bank think it has impunity to extort {$290.00} from me and defame my credit reputation? 

XXXX made little effort to collect the {$63.00} the vendor owes. It proved it made one chargeback effort in six months, after twice closing my fraud report in days without any investigation. It dissected my one fraud case into six case numbers, apparently as a scheme to subvert the Fair Credit Billing Act timeline. It used an obsolete chargeback code in what looks like effort to protect the vendor from my true fraud claim. The banks reply acknowledges it understood I reported fraud at least 2 months before its chargeback, because it says it blocked the vendor permanently from my card on XXXX XXXX XXXX 

The bank and the vendor have proved neither can be trusted to tell the truth, so I have no idea which one now holds this {$63.00} hot potato. I dont have it. I dont owe it. I didnt order or receive a {$63.00} future yearlong service ( called new, not renewal, not merchandise ). I reported that to each of them the first day I learned of shenanigans. The banks XXXX XX/XX/XXXX excuse for resurrecting a zombie {$63.00} four months later was that I didnt report fraud before it happened. I did anticipate this vendor would try again -- why not, when XXXX made defrauding my account so easy? -- and the bank ignored my block and gave the vendor the precise charge I prohibited, and STILL tried to extort me for it, too, for four months! 

The Fair Credit Billing Act and other consumer protection laws gave lenders, not consumers, the legal tools to claw back unauthorized and fraudulent transactions. XXXX refusal to use those tools suggests its more profitable for the two multi-BILLION-dollar companies to conspire to violate the law. 

A lawyer I spoke with informally yesterday scoffed, XXXX is notoriously consumer unfriendly, with a wink on the euphemism unfriendly. 

The XXXX website makes me think XXXX knew this vendors fraud pattern. Relatively obscure, the XXXX hosts almost 400 reviews of this vendor, all the lowest rank and all look to report similar frauds. One recent review even says this vendor canceled payment on a refund check after it was cashed in the recipients bank, apparently to falsify a paper trail of compliance with the refund the vendor stole. 

This was not a transaction for delivered merchandise, as XXXX tries to gaslight. And its defense that a seller has superior authority to override a consumers decision not to prepay to buy nonexistent future service is frivolous. An authorized transaction is what the credit-card holder approves, and no one else. 

CFPB, if you want a state attorney general to handle this, as XXXX XXXX has been telling the NAAG the past two years, then which AG, or all? This crime was schemed in Arizona, occurred in New Jersey, and entered into conspiracy and further civil violations in Massachusetts. Attorneys general might round-robin endlessly to each other and you -- without clarity on jurisdictions and expectations. 

Also new : I preserved for potential forensic investigation the laptop damaged again on the anniversary day of the fraudulent {$63.00} transaction. I suspect this vendor made a third malicious intrusion that caused it to implode on that day. Two intrusions in XXXX tried and failed to imbed its {$63.00} software. 

Its what Ive feared all along : that XXXX pretense that I bought and had a future yearlong service that never existed would spawn an annual repeat of the crime. Its why I didnt just pay it when the bank violated the Fair Credit Billing Act to resurrect a zombie {$63.00} charge five months after the fact. 

The bank and the vendor should be ordered to preserve all audio and other records. I fear both will destroy evidence in phone recordings that I didn't also record. I recorded only some. My recording of XXXX 's three-way call XXXX XX/XX/XXXX to the vendor was corrupted on that laptop. I may/may not have a copy of that call that is material evidence that the bank knows the vendor owes these refunds, not me. 

I have many more written documents, emails and screenshots to defend my letters and my FBI testimony. 

P.S. Literally, as I was giving one last look before transmitting this CFPB package, I saw the attached email from XXXX 's vendor in my in-box and added a quick scan. It looks like the vendor is creating a paper trail to respond to the nonprofit XXXX XXXX inquiry -- an inquiry that I believe XXXX should have made itself to recover its own money stolen by fraud. 

I say this is XXXX vendor, because it wasnt my vendor. I didn't make this {$63.00} purchase and didn't authorize the vendor to access my card for a {$63.00} transaction, or for the curious sum in this email. XXXX contention it was obliged to pay the vendor indicates its own contract with the vendor, which is demonstrated in its extreme loyalty to its vendor over its card customer. 

I added a standalone copy of my certified XXXX XX/XX/XXXX notice to the vendor CEO as reminder to readers of this complaint that his company must remit this chargeback debt to XXXX, not to me. I demanded other restitution from both, which neither has addressed, so my complaint continues regardless if the chargeback refund is finally fulfilled or not. I pursue legal compliance from both companies to meet their contractual obligations to each other, and each to me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation