Consumer complaint received 2015-07-30
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit reporting company's investigation
Sub-issue: Investigation took too long

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I, XXXX XXXX, sent a letter certified mail with return receipt requested, to Equifax in dispute of an inaccurate and incomplete account listed in my credit file which they received on XX/XX/XXXX. The item was promptly verified on XXXX ( see # XXXX ) and a letter was sent to me stating that the account was revolving 2 months, delinquent, owing {$540.00} and it had no status codes. Yet, when i questioned their investigative results, which seemed inadequate considering it only took the 3 days to verify, I disputed their response and asked for the descriptions and procedures of how their investigation was conducted and they failed to provide me with anything. After many attempts at requesting those descriptions and procedures, beginning with the letter dated XX/XX/XXXX, they sent me a phone number which was incorrect and not even in the right state. After i finally found the number on the web I contacted the company and they provided me with paper work to forward to Equifax, since they were the only ones repotting this inaccurate account, and so I forwarded the paper work which states that this item was never delinquent or in collection. Equifax claimed they had not received my mail over rye phone so they were not able to verify my concern. This was very hurtful because I was already skeptical of their investigative job and it had been approaching almost 60 days by now and no descriptions and procedures were received yet. In XXXX I sent another letter threatening to complain to the FTC, as the US department of Education had informed me that no one from Equifax had communicated with them nor had they forwarded any documents to be investigated and verified. I became very frustrated with their lack of assistance and investigation and I requested that since they were not properly verifying these items and provided the appropriate response and descriptions to me they should delete this account, because it violated FCRA laws on accuracy, and 30 days investigative results. They again, refused to comply with that request by mail and by phone so I contacted the CFPB for help because they had no changed my account to show ( by XX/XX/XXXX ) that they account, now, was an account revolving for 4 months ( incorrect ) it was status code XXXX ( incorrect ), collections paid ( incorrect ). This item needs to be deleted, because the only claim to an actual investigate occurred in XXXX, when I reported this dispute to the CFPB, against Equifax claimed to have CALLED the company, which they had NEVER done before. It has been 6 months ( well passed the 30-day and 45 day mark ) and i had not received any investigative results worthy of allowing this account to remain. The US Department of Education also alerted us that they sent Equifax XXXX INDIRECTIVE Credit Alerts on XXXX XXXX to have this account changed to a non-delinquent account paid in XX/XX/XXXX or to be deleted. Equifax refuse to comply and has made everything extremely difficult. I, XXXX XXXX, have not received adequate investigative results since XXXX, this has been very hard for me as I have lost out on a mortgage and our family home because of this incorrect delinquency. This account was paid in XX/XX/XXXX and never late or in collection. It was improperly transferred by XXXX overpayments, which runs the loan department at my XXXX college. Please investigate the improper ways in which Equifax conducts investigations for consumer versus the way they claim to " verify '' and " investigate '' when the federal government is involved. Legally this account must be deleted. No investigative results, phone calls, or forwarded letter where sent until XXXX to verify the account, yet no one forward my documents to the US Department of Education to verify the inaccuracies I disputed in XXXX. SO how would they have the decency to report it to my file after 100+days of no answers XXXX me

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation