Consumer complaint received 2020-05-18
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: NY
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report
Sub-issue: Credit inquiries on your report that you don't recognize

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2020 I visited XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX at XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, NY XXXX, to check out couple RV trailers I found online earlier. XXXX XXXX was sales person who assisted me that day. Along with cash deal option, we also discussed financing option. XXXX mentioned that with credit score of 700 points and over, XXXX may offer 6-7 % APR. This seemed reasonable, and since I'm over 700, I've decided to give it a try. However, It was critical for me not to have more than 1 hard inquiry as I'm planning some other uses of my credit potential in nearest future and don't want my score to drop too much due to unnecessary inquires. I asked XXXX to tell me more about XXXX 's approach with getting the best rate for the customers. The explanation was ... Once online credit application is being submitted by the customer, XXXX runs soft inquiry in order to get a general idea about customer 's credit history. Then information is being analyzed by experienced staff from financing department, who determines the best financing institution for each particular case and after all of that, such institution runs ONE hard inquiry in order to finalize the deal and provide the best rate. Explanation from the above seemed reasonable too, so on XX/XX/XXXX I proceeded with submitting of online form to XXXX. 
Some time after submittal I received email notifying that there was a hard inquiry made by XXXX XXXX on my account. After that I was asked by XXXX representative to pay {$500.00} deposit so they XXXX begin process with bank, which I payed. After couple days I've decided to check on status of this deal, and was told by XXXX, bank still needs couple days in order to finalize everything and we just have to wait for it. Couple days after ( week after I submitted online application to XXXX  ), I got a call from person named XXXX XXXX, who seemed to be XXXX 's Financing Manager. Right after I picked up the phone, he asked me when I'm planning to come to pick up my RV. That was slightly confusing as I still never got deal terms and rates from them by that time. As I asked for it, he said that there are still no answer from the bank, but as he reviewed my credit report, he can say that APR will be somewhere around 9 %. My point was, it might be too early to schedule RV pick up, as we don't have final answer from the bank with certain deal terms which I want to review first. He sounded not very happy with my answer, and said he will get back to me in 2 days with all details. Right after this call, I got two other emails notifying about TWO new hard inquires. One of them was made by XXXX again and another one by the bank. So now I got 3 hard inquires total when I only authorized 1. This really seamed they never reached to the bank until that call and only send information to the bank a week after I submitted everything to them, making 2 unnecessary hard inquires on my account from XXXX prior to this. 
As I tried to resolve this with sales person directly, now he was saying completely different things ... Now he said that this is common practice and in order to get the best rate XXXX is shopping around with as many banks and make as many hard inquires as they feel necessary to do and there is nothing they can do about 3 hard inquires on my account instead of 1. 
I tried to complain to their corporate office and person who I spoke to, was trying to convince me that 2 inquiries I got from XXXX was not hard but soft, despite the fact I see them as HARD on my credit report ( screenshot attached ). 
I'm also attaching 2 Notices of Adverse Action from XXXX confirming 2 hard inquiries made by them on XX/XX/2020 and repeating it on XX/XX/2020 again. It is easy to notice that after 1st inquiry credit score is XXXX, and after 2nd it dropped 4 points to XXXX. And that was only related to their recent hard inquiry. My assumption is, while it got checked by the bank eventually it was even lowed affected by 2 unauthorized hard inquiries made by XXXX previously.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation