Consumer complaint received 2019-05-08
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX, I inquired about a lease and verified if me paying the loan up-front would still report on my credit, and I was told yes by the dealership. 

After a month into to the lease ( XX/XX/XXXX ), and NOT seeing anything on my credit, I called on a recorded line to XXXX XXXX XXXX, and inquired about what I was told regarding credit reporting of a " One -time pay '' lease. The representative in or around XX/XX/XXXX, in the customer service department got the " credit analysts '' on the phone, and then she verified that my lease will report " open '' and paid on time, even if I did a one time lease payment. Essentially I paid After about another 3 weeks, I see the on my credit report that the XXXX was " closed ''. I called XXXX and spoke to numerous supervisors that indicated  that this should be reporting open and " they do this all the time ''. In my correspondence with them a second and third time regarding the same issue and the same responses that it would be corrected, I was twas then told by a supervisor of customer service that, " it could not be done '', and that they would refund my one time payment of approx $ 43k of the $ XXXX I sent to them. Customer Service said they would advocate for me getting this because of the many promises that were made. 

After about a week, customer service came back to say that their back-end group said the refund needed to come from the dealership, and then placed me on a 3way call with the dealership and asked for a refund because of all the issues with the inaccuracies in my reporting and they could not correct the problem. The dealer declined to refund and said " XXXX knows this '' and hung up on both of us. 

In XX/XX/XXXX I escalated this through-out the various supervisor chains and finally got a a manger of escalation named XXXX, who gave me her number and said I would receive a refund, as she could see all the problems that were documented in XXXX system. XXXX said she would call me back by Friday of that week on or about the first week in XX/XX/XXXX, and she would call me by the end of week with an update as to my refund. IT never happen. In fact, I was lied to by another XXXX supervisor who said, " XXXX was at lunch and she would call me back '', and in fact XXXX was never in the office. 

I was then told by XXXX the following week when she did call, that I needed to escalate this issue to Executive Management. I then opened a 4th case with Executive management on or around the the XX/XX/XXXX,  with XXXX from within the XXXX Executive Management Dept. She stated that she would get me my refund. After about a month of back and forth, she finally stated that the dealership wont " re-book the deal '' deal and give me a refund, and they cant correct the problem with the credit reporting and that legal is figuring out a fair solution. 

This report is by no means all exhaustive, and all calls were recorded by XXXX, as XXXX did acknowledge their major nut refuse to give me my refund in a timely fashion. XXXX misrepresented the fact that my account would be reported open, and this has in hurt my ability to close on a mortgage loan IM engaged in. I get invoiced each month showing a " credit '', and i also have an " open " account within XXXX  on the auto lease side. This is NOT right. I solicit your help in helping me get what is rightfully mine, and stop XXXX from deliberately lying and processing my refund of {$43000.00}

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation