Consumer complaint received 2018-06-28
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with fraud alerts or security freezes

Complaint:
On Monday, XX/XX/XXXX, I attempted to get service from XXXX XXXX in my name. They placed me on hold to check my credit. After a while, they returned and said that they had pulled the credit report with Equifax and found out that there was a block on my credit. Since I had no idea why my credit report would be blocked being that my credit rating is XXXX A, I was told by XXXX XXXX   to contact Equifax and ask them to unblock my account. By this time it was approximately XXXX XXXX I called Equifax and got a recording saying that the system was being updated and to call back the next day. 

When I called Equifax the next day, my husband was with me. We got a recording again saying to call back in 30 minutes because the system was being updated. After 4 or 5 times of calling and getting the same message again, we managed to get hold of a live person. After giving her my social security number, full name, date of birth, current address, several previous addresses, she went on to ask for all my credit cards, balances and credit limits. After giving her all the information I had available, and more, she said I had flunked the security question. When I told her she had never asked me the security question, and what was the security question, she refused to tell me what the security question was and said that I had flunked it already anyway. We asked to speak with a supervisor. She said there were no supervisors available, and to call back in half an hour. This went on for most of the day, with the same results. 

After all the above failed attempts, we called back and managed to speak with a very helpful rep called XXXX. He asked for my personal information and then told me the system was down. I told him about all my previous calls and how frustrated I was with having to answer all the extraneous questions about all my previous addresses, credit cards, etc.. He said he would only needed me to answer one additional question to identify myself, which I did. He then said that the previous people I spoke with should have told me right away that they could not unblock my account because the computer was being updated, instead of putting me through the third degree with all the questions that were totally unnecessary. He apologized for all the other reps. I asked him if, since I had already made so many calls and gotten the same responses, if a supervisor could contact me when the system was up and running again. He said it could be arranged, and went ahead and arranged for me to get a call back by COB Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX. 

No supervisor called on Wednesday. My husband and I then proceeded to call back today ( Thursday ) again, only to go through the same situation all over about answering a million questions to prove my identity, being put on hold several times, and finally telling us to call back in two hours because the system was still down. Rather than continuing with this harassing game, we decided to call your office directly and spoke with your very helpful representative called XXXX. XXXX advised us to fill out this form and submit it.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation