Consumer complaint received 2018-03-12
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: OR
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit monitoring or identity theft protection services
Sub-issue: Problem with product or service terms changing

Complaint:
After the Equifax data breach, I signed up with the TrustedID Premier servicea service that was being offered for free to customers who had been victims of the data breach. However, after trying unsuccessfully for days to sign up ( I continually received the message Service Not Available ), I finally sent them an email indicating I was unable to reach the service. They sent me an email back later saying I was already signed up, even though I had never done it myself.

Lately Ive been getting emails and text messages saying that my credit report had changed and that I should check the details at trustedID.com. However, this website, trustedID.com, has been down for over two weeks. I tried it in two different browsers ( XXXX and XXXX ) and they both indicated that the website could not be reached.

In order to check whether it was my local system that was the problem ( even though I had no problems reaching any other websites ) I went to three different web status checking sites ( XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX, and XXXX XXXX XXXX ) and all three of them showed that the website was down for everyone.

I called Equifax ( who, as far as I can tell, owns trustedID.com ) to tell them about this problem. The first woman I talked to insisted that the website was up because she could see it there ( being inside the company ). I asked her to check these server-monitoring sites because it would be very simple for her to check what people outside the company were seeing and she flat-out refused to do so. She was rude and would not listen to what I was telling her so I asked to speak to her supervisor. The superviser also insisted that the site was up because no one had called to tell her otherwise. I told her that that is why I was calling. I also asked her to check these external sites and she also flatly refused. I could not understand their reluctance. I told them that it seemed that it would be in their best interests to know if these sites were showing that trustedID.com was down.

Again, she insisted that the website was up and was also rude. I asked to speak to her supervisor but she told me she wasnt available. She wanted to know if I wanted to file a complaint with customer service and I said yes. She connected me with customer service and the woman she connected me to was the first woman I had spoken to! Its like they only had two people working there. This woman would not take my complaint.

So this complaint has two parts : 1 ) I have *never* been able to access trustedID.com, either to set up my account or to check my account. 2 ) The customer service system they have to handle problems is woefully inadequate and seems to be determined to ignore problems with their website, even when verifying my claims was as simple as a XXXX  search. Finally both people I talked to were extremely rude.

I would think that after their egregious data breach, Equifax would be bending over backwards to improve their customer relations, but apparently they have decided this is not something they need to do. I hope you can encourage them to take their responsibilities more seriously considering the terrible toll their ineptitude has visited on their customers.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation