Consumer complaint received 2019-09-26
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: MI
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with fraud alerts or security freezes

Complaint:
Dear FTC, Due to the breaches at Equifax, I set out to FREEZE CREDIT on all my family members including Grandma and Grandpa following the online guides from the three credit reporting companies. XXXX and XXXX were fairly uneventful but dealing with Equifax was close to impossible. Let me explain exactly what happened with 2 of out the 4 FREEZES. 

In XX/XX/2019, I attempted to follow instructions on the Equifax online website to FREEZE credit for my wife, grandma, grandpa, and myself. It worked 50 % of the time and I believe the reason for the failures is that Equifax has inaccurate information. In one specific case they didn't even spell the firstname of the family member properly. Here is the play-by-play of my dealings with Equifax. Repeat this story two times for two family members. 

1. Go to Equifax Website and start the account creation process 2. Follow Freeze Directions 3. Make an Account and setup a password 4. Authenticate yourself by answering personal questions name, email, phone number, address, social security number, etc ... 
5. Answer 4-5 questions about loans and financial accounts 6. After answered all the questions the website fails to authenticate the person and requires them request a letter with a special code. 

**** TIME PASSES *** 7. Letter arrives in US Mail ( uncertified ) about a week later and the special code mixes both the letter O and 0 making the code confusing to read and type in. Seriously, who mixes capital O 's and 0 's, only Equifax. 
8. After typing in the code the website requires the same initial questions to be answered to be answered all over again.

9. The website requires a password reset since the original password no longer works.

10. After resetting the password and attempting to login this results in a failure and a one screen request to contact Equifax via telephone 11. A call is placed Equifax on the phone, the automated phone system is impossible to get through and asks the same questions as the website in a much, much, clunkier way, then explains it can't verify you and hangs up.

12. Calling back again and again, I finally figure out of to get through the phone tree maze to an agent located in the XXXX. That give me a lot of confidence that sensitive personal information of US Citizens is available to workers in a foreign country. 
13. I speak with the agent, he asks for the same information again and again.

14. He explains that he do anything or Freeze the credit and further can't explain why.

15. I argue with him for about 20 minutes explaining that I have been working on Freezing the credit for weeks now. 
16. He explains by policy there is nothing he can do and he demands that I fax in a copy of a social security card and drivers license to Equifax and then Equifax would then send me another letter in about a week. I explain that I have made an account, answered questions, requested a letter with a special code, and have followed every single policy and procedure and just want to have the credit Frozen. He maintains there is nothing he can do and there is no one in the XXXX that can assist or help. 
17. I refuse to fax Equifax anything and decide to go play with the website using Incognito Mode in XXXX and discover that using Incognito Mode I can login. I turns out that the error message to call Equifax is a bug in their website. 
18. Using the website I am finally able to freeze the final two credit after spending hours dealing with these less than useless clowns.

19. And it still isn't over, in order for the website to do the freeze you have to agree to Equifax 's new TOS ( Terms of Service ) which forces you to give up your legal rights to sue them and abide by arbitration, here is the specific language from the new TOS. 

4. AGREEMENT TO RESOLVE ALL DISPUTES BY BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION. PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE SECTION CAREFULLY BECAUSE IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS BY REQUIRING ARBITRATION OF DISPUTES ( EXCEPT AS SET FORTH BELOW ) AND A WAIVER OF THE ABILITY TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION, CLASS ARBITRATION, OR OTHER REPRESENTATIVE ACTION. ARBITRATION PROVIDES A QUICK AND COST EFFECTIVE MECHANISM FOR RESOLVING DISPUTES, BUT YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT IT ALSO LIMITS YOUR RIGHTS TO DISCOVERY AND APPEAL.

20. So now, if I want to exercise my right under Federal Law to have my credit frozen, I have to either submit to arbitration with Equifax or send Equifax a letter within 30-days telling them that I do not wish to resolve disputes with Equifax through arbitration and have to now write and mail a letter. There is no simple checkbox to opt-out of binding arbitration. 

21. I write a letter stating I do no agree to their terms.

22. I mail the letter.

23. Finally done.

The audience of family members watched sat with me is disbelief as this slow motion train wreck unfolded. Something that should not have taken more than 10-minutes to weeks. All my family members ( especially Grandma and Grandpa ) stated that they would have been unable to complete this process without my help and would have just given up and remained vulnerable to Equifax 's data breach. 

In my experience, Equifax engages in " malicious complexity '' 50 % of time. It is very clear they that Equifax does not want consumers to be able to easily freeze their credit, access a support agent, and if a person finally does make it to the goal line, Equifax wants them to agree to forfeit their legal rights to sue for damages and incompetence. 

My entire family agrees that Equifax is not helpful, very confusing to deal with, and if you can navigate the phone maze and find an agent in a foreign country to speak with about sensitive personal information they are useless. We all agree that we would like the right to be forgotten and deleted from Equifax and incensed that they can even have our personal data. 

Never in all of our collective lives have we ever dealt with a more difficult company with non-existent service.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation