Consumer complaint received 2020-01-22
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: MA
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: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
XXXX XXXX has been unable to provide to me my loan documentation. I have been told I must have opened the account " verbally ''. Over the years I had try fighting this, I had tried disputing late items on my credit report because I have no terms of this line of credit. I have been told that I am not able to access the line of credit because I had 2 late payments. I am told I am responsible for late fees on the account, however I still have no terms of the loan. What did I sign up for and how did I sign up for this? I have been denied access to the loan documentation on numerous occasions which shows what I had legally signed up for. I had many hour long phone calls with them. 

I have even spoken with the corporate complaint office. They said because you have made payments to the this loan I am accepting ownership of it. This comment was very off base because I am not trying to deny owing money. I am willing to pay, however, I do not know what I am legally responsible for. In other words, could they just charge me a fee of {$50000.00}? I do not know since they claim this was opened verbally. Additionally, they claim that I never needed to sign anything for them to report me to credit bureaus. They stated because they mail a disclosure they can do this, even though it is after the fact. 

The only thing I remember about this account opening was something about it being " overdraft protection '' for a checking account I once had. I had very little money and was extremely vulnerable to things like this. Since it was " overdraft protection '' or a " line of credit '' I didn't know much about how it all worked and did not know they could send something monthly to credit reporting companies. 

Additionally, when making payments over the phone I was told several times I could make payments to principle and not forwards fees. Turns out these payments were applied to principle payments only for the first month due but anything beyond that minimum payment due was applied to the fees. This created additional reporting of negative items on my credit report. As a hypothetical example, I would call them on $ XX/XX/XXXX and they would say " You own {$230.00}, {$50.00} towards principle which was due XX/XX/XXXX and {$180.00} in fees. '' I would then ask them when my next payment is due, and they would tell me " XX/XX/XXXX you have the option to not pay the fees and just pay principle but the fees would stay ''. I would reply " Okay, I don't want to pay the fees this time but want to make my minimum principal payment for XX/XX/XXXX and pay for the following month of XX/XX/XXXX, so {$100.00} in total ''. They would agree, take the payment over the phone. Turns out years later that the second half of the payment was always going to fees and not to the upcoming month payment. 

They have refused to help me resolve this issue. Transunion for example, does no fact checking on the claims of the financial institutions. They take the word of them over the consumer. It is even on their website. 

Despite, them not having loan documentation which would be something that I signed and should have access to upon request, they have claimed they are not wrong for reporting me to the credit agencies. In another call, they said yeah sure we can get you your loan documents but " it costs {$3.00} per page and it can be very long, like 150 pages according the manager. '' After that, I spoke with another phone representative who told me, " I am very sorry about that. We will waive that fee for you. What is local branch we will fax it to them. '' I gave them a local branch, went to that branch and they gave me some ACH form that WAS NOT A LOAN DOCUMENT. 

Over the years I was always under the assumption there was nothing that I could do and had to just deal with the situation. However, recently I have decided that I will not continue to be bullied by this company.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation