Consumer complaint received 2019-07-05
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: Information belongs to someone else

Complaint:
Equifax XXXX up my credit profile and showed bad attitude on assisting me solving the problem. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I applied XXXX XXXX Credit Card from XXXX XXXX XXXX. XXXX pulled my credit report from Equifax, then denied my application given the reason of " too many ( XXXX ) accounts opened within last 24 months ''. I then telephoned XXXX customer support and found out that the credit history XXXX got from Equifax was not accurate at all. In the report provided by Equifax to XXXX, I found there are several accounts that were not opened by me. Then I telephoned Equifax customer service and requested a dispute of those accounts against my Credit profile. 
I was offended by the process of how Equifax handled my dispute request. Here are my primary complaints : 1. Dereliction of duty Equifax required me to submit a lot of supporting documents ( W-2, pay-stub, SSN Card, Drivers License, Address, Rental Agreement, Utility Bill, etc ) to validate my identity, which in my opinion exposed their failure to protect users ' credit info but to return the responsibility to the user to prove his identity. 
2. Processing speed very slow Despite Equifax 's dereliction of duty, I still submitted those docs accordingly. However, it took Equifax nearly a month only to be able to verify my identity, not even mentioning investigating the inaccurate info requested in my dispute request against the credit report they provided. Interestingly, their call center representative told me this process only takes no more than a week in general. 
3. Unresponsive customer call center representatives During the processing time, I telephoned their call center quite a few times tracking the updates. However, none of them was useful. Every time what I can only hear was their emphasis on they couldn't see anything from their database, so I had to either wait or to re-submit again. They even suspected me mailing the docs to the wrong place. Ironically, the mailing address was provided by Equifax. I believe it was because of their internal miscommunications which caused the delay, however, what I felt about the attitude from the representative was " We can't do anything from our Equifax side. If you want us to process the dispute, you have to provide this and this, that and that ... '', even forgetting the cause of this inconvenience may possibly be the recent data exposure to the hacker, in which Equifax was the one at fault, not us customers. 
4. Problem still unresolved Now I received their full credit report, but still notice lots of wrong information recorded on the report which are not relevant to me at all ( wrong former name, non-existing accounts opened by me, invalid credit inquiries, etc ). I proactively contacted the banks I don't think I have any accounts with, but was reported by Equifax, and got proof from them those accounts don't exist. Therefore, I believe ( a ) my credit profile was XXXX  up by Equifax entirely ; ( b ) Equifax didn't demonstrate well attitude on supporting me getting this cleared up. I got tired calling Equifax again and again. I'd like to come here for additional help from you.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation