Consumer complaint received 2018-10-18
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: GA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with fraud alerts or security freezes

Complaint:
I have had an Equifax security freeze in place for multiple years. Earlier this week I needed to request a temporary lift of my freeze online. When I went to the Equifax website, they forced me to create a myEquifax account in order to manage my security freeze ( this is new, as in the past I did not have to have a myEquifax account to lift my freeze online ). 

So, to proceed online, I followed the prompts and entered all my personal information including address, SSN, telephone number, email, etc, as well as creating a password for the account. Once I got to the submit page to create the account, I got an error message that say I needed to call Equifax to continue.

I called Equifax immediately and was told that they received my account registration personal information, and that I should try to login to my account. I attempted to login with my password and got the error message " We are temporarily unable to complete this request. Please try again later. '' I then spoke to a supervisor and they said I should be able to login within 24 hours. She also said she would call me back to let me know when it was fixed. She never did.

DAY 2 : I attempted to login again. I got the same error message. I called Equifax again and was given the same run around. No one actually looked into my account to discover why I was not being allowed to login. I was told to wait.

DAY 3 : I was still unable to login with my credentials. Still got the same error message. At this point I realized a friend was able to login with no problem. And when they entered a wrong password, they got a message that said " The email and password combination you entered is incorrect. '' Then I tried to login with my correct email address but an incorrect password and I did not get that message. I still got the same old message " We are temporarily unable to complete this request. Please try again later. '' DAY 4 : I was still unable to login. Still same old error message " We are temporarily unable to complete this request. Please try again later. '' Still no callbacks from all the times I had called in earlier in the week to report the problem. I called customer service again. I was told my account information was correct, and that all the data I entered matches the data in my credit file, and they did not know why I could not login. I then spoke to a supervisor who once again told me they would fix it and get back to me.

DAY 5 : I was still unable to login. Still same old error message. This is ridiculous. I created the myEquifax account online as Equifax forced me to. It's something new they are forcing consumers to do to unfreeze their credit, even though I have a PIN and in the past was able to enter my personal details and my PIN on a page on their website to lift my security freeze without being forced to create an account. Now, I was forced to create an account with their new myEquifax platform and I am not able to login. They are not fixing the problem and just giving me the run around. It appears no one has actually even looked into my account login problem.

This is scary, because for now my personal information seems like it is in limbo. I don't know if my data is secure or not. I don't know if a criminal has stolen my identity and went around me to create a myEquifax account using my ID without my knowledge.

If Equifax is going to use their registration page to collect all my personal info including my SSN, they need to be responsible and give me access to my account so that I can have peace of mind that my personal information is not being breached.

If Equifax is going to force consumers to create an online account to manage security freezes, then Equifax needs to ensure that consumers can access their accounts so they they can safeguard their personal information and keep their passwords up-to-date.

To resolve this problem, I want Equifax to fix my myEquifax account 's login issue, and ensure that I am able to login to the myEquifax account they forced me to create.

A screenshot of the login error page is attached for reference.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation