Consumer complaint received 2020-11-25
Company: Experian Information Solutions Inc.
State: MI
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Difficulty submitting a dispute or getting information about a dispute over the phone

Complaint:
Experian provided a response to complaint XXXX which states " Please note that a re-investigation may take up to 30 days. Upon completion, the result summary will be provided directly to you. If you have any additional supporting new documentation regarding the disputed information, you may forward that to Experian for further review. If you disagree with the results of the re-investigations, it is your legal right, under the FCRA, to add a 100-word statement specifying the nature of your dispute. The consumer statement will appear on your credit report and be viewable upon inquiry. " On XXXX XX/XX/2020 I attempted to dispute several inaccuracies. The system prevented me from doing such claiming that because I had previously filed disputes for the items before that I would not be able to dispute the same items without " documentation. '' For example, one ( 1 ) item Experian is claiming that results of a prior dispute conducted in XX/XX/2020 prevents subsequent disputes of information for the same account/tradeline without documentation. That is they are preventing dispute of information such as payment history for months beyond XX/XX/2020, claiming that the data furnisher provided automated information through the eOSCAR system. This logic is flawed as credit files are not static and have been historically prone to error. 

Experian only provides a limited set of the dispute reasons to select from. If it is not prefilled, indviduals are required to dispute using " other. '' What Experian is providing prefilled dispute reasons for items that may be verified and validated using automated reporting through eOSCAR and forcing non-prefilled reasons to be marked as other. This " other reason '' is how they are forcing individuals to provide " documentation. They are intentionally slowing down the ability for consumers to dispute inaccurate information if it requires them to actually review information. The set of " other reasons '' is infinite. So, again, they are intentionally abridging the right of notice and opportunity to be heard to mitigate an " undue burden '' on their organization. That smells of a due process violation under the FCRA. 

So, while congress and the CRAs outline provisions to check credit reports weekly during the pandemic, Experian is preventing exercise of those provisions or the provisions outlined under the FCRA prior to the pandemic. They are effectively abridging my due process rights to dispute information and insisting that there is a causal connection between the results of a dispute from prior months and the accuracy for any subsequent information disputed if it can not be verified through their prefilled automated eOSCAR reporting.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation