Consumer complaint received 2018-11-24
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: MD
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report
Sub-issue: Report provided to employer without your written authorization

Complaint:
Dear Federal Trade Commission Customer Financial Protection Bureau : I am XXXX years old, and I am far from working with modern marvels including computer-based finances. 
Probably because of that, I am only keeping my score to be good although, I feel, according to my assets ; it should always be excellent. 
Anyhow, my referral website is XXXX and Equifax as the information sources about the score and changes in it. 
Recently, I needed some fresh money to pay legal services for litigation in XXXX to collect debt created by a piracy of my IP by XXXX. 
I asked for Line-of-Credit several creditors, but I always was convinced by them that their requests will not damage my score very much. It was true. 
Surprisingly, just before the Holiday vacation, I noticed that XXXX score has changed for 95 points. It went down from XXXX ( good ) to XXXX ( poor ). The only contact I had was on the day of score reduction ( XX/XX/2018) with a XXXX XXXX  representative who used his resources to check my score. This change has immediately decreased my options to loan some money by certified creditors and, to remedy this status, I called XXXX for the explanation. 
They kindly explained that they obtain information from credit bureaus and that this change happened on Equifax in response to some inquiry by XXXX XXXX XXXX ( XXXX, or XXXX XXXX - -located in Colorado at XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX, XXXX , CO XXXX ) The XXXX XXXX confirmed that XXXX XXXX is their source of combined information from all three registered and legally approved credit bureaus Equifax , XXXX and XXXX   . XXXX XXXX obviously is not an authorized provider of credit information. 
I was appalled because I do not know who and what is that company, I never got in touch with them, never asked them for a loan, and never have given any authorization to them ; less to manipulate my score credit reports. 
Suddenly, from the blues, somebody has ruined my credibility. 
Somebody else must be responsible for these fraudulent actions. But who? 
I called Equifax. The CS was not able to give me an answer, but the Supervisor asked me to pay ( which I did ) and to expect my Equifax score on mail reported in 5-7 business days. It happened never before. I always received the simple answer. 
I tried to file a dispute at Equifax, but since the XXXX XXXX have not mentioned any account, I could not even file that this account is not mine. The complaint went to the customer comment box. 
I checked XXXX XXXX website ( XXXX ) and found a computer data company which is collecting and selling data from companies and individuals. I called XXXX XXXX again and they confirmed that they work with XXXX XXXX and that they were in touch regarding my score just in the time my score was changed. Since I did not give authorization to XXXX XXXX to share my information with any third party, like XXXX XXXX, I think they must share the responsibility for reducing my score for 96 points in a couple of hours after being in the good range. 
I do not recall that any Federal regulation is giving authority to anybody to check the personal credit score without the prior written permission. Somebody, in this case, a representative from XXXX XXXX, has given permission to XXXX XXXX to re-score information on my credit, or they did it without permission. I I think, this is a violation of FDCPA and FCRA, both under FTC/CFPB jurisdiction and this why I am writing this complaint.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation