Consumer complaint received 2020-05-03
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: NY
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:
I was living in XXXX and had XXXX as my home cable/internet provider. In XXXX of XXXX the TV service was not working and the company at the same time increased my monthly charges. I began to contact XXXX weekly to fix the connectivity issue. For over a month XXXX kept saying it was nothing on their end and that I needed to tighten my wires. I finally insisted a repairman come and address the issue even at significant cost if they did not find anything. The repairman came and realized something was wrong but did not immediately fix the issue. We had a total of 3 months of bad TV service and I asked XXXX to credit our account. They finally sent someone in late XXXX to fix the issue and then only credited us a small amount. In the meantime, I removed by automatic payment and did not want them charging the new and higher prices for services that I was not receiving. In XXXX, I attempted to pay the outstanding amount due but there was a block on my credit card from XXXX. I had to call numerous times and only after escalating to a supervisor they let me pay by phone with an ability on their end to override any system issues. In XXXX I tried to pay my bill while getting an understanding of the new charges. I called repeatedly to try and pay and was transferred back and forth between their teams and was told due to a system issue I would be locked out for three months and would have to wait for the system to allow my credit card payment. Separately, I was in the process of terminating my account because they were charging me extra while not providing service and blaming me for the technological issues. 
Finally, when the lock on my account was up I paid the remaining balance through the online portal. 
However much to my surprise XXXX apparently reported me as delinquent to all the credit reporting agencies for the two months while THEY locked me out of their system. 
I initially asked XXXX to look into this and they said the charges were accurate and closed the dispute. 
I am now in the process of looking for a mortgage and this collection reduced my score by 150 points. I contacted XXXX to resolve this issue and they stated there is nothing they can do. I further asked if they can advise why they sent me to collections when it was their system that locked me out and preventing me from paying on time and they stated that I would need to hire a lawyer and subpoena the records if I wanted to prove that I was locked out and effectively forced by XXXX to wait and pay. That is an unreasonable and unfair burden for XXXX and the credit bureaus to place on a customer to prove. This feels like I am assumed guilty and now have to depend on the kindness of companies to investigate an issue that materially impacts by future. This most recent call happened on the weekend of XX/XX/XXXX and all subsequent calls have been of no value as XXXX is unwilling to assist or look into this matter. 

I had a credit score in the 790 's and now below 675. This is an unfair punishment by XXXX when it was their system that prevented payment and was even advised to until the lockout period was over numerous times by their customer service representatives. This was further retaliated because I terminated service due to a lack of transparency and over charging for services not received. 

I am requesting that the CFPB requests these records back to XXXX of XXXX which will confirm my statements here and mandates that XXXX remove this credit delinquency from my credit report with all 3 credit bureaus.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation