Consumer complaint received 2017-10-12
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: HI
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with fraud alerts or security freezes

Complaint:
This complaint is regarding my experience using the solutions that have been provided by Equifax post breach to secure my credit file. It has been excruciating at best to get myself set up with them, taking the last 3 weeks of diligent effort to put their solutions in place. I have been a victim of identity theft in the past due to XXXX XXXX XXXX so I am on high alert since my personal info is being exposed on the dark web according to XXXX. 

I decided to freeze my credit file with each of the 3 credit bureaus; I'm also monitoring for a year at Equifax / XXXX XXXX, which they said will monitor each of the 3 bureaus; and I'm monitoring for free at XXXX XXXX for both Equifax and XXXX. For the two bureaus other than Equifax, I paid a fee to freeze my file. 

On XXXX XXXX XXXX, since I never received any information regarding a password to the monitoring of XXXX XXXX, which was set up on XX/XX/XXXX, I asked Equifax to reset my password. They sent me a reset by email and then I logged into their monitoring portal at XXXX XXXX for the first time, I was disturbed by my experience at their online portal because it seemed like they may still be hacked because parts of it worked very strangely, and other parts did not work at all.  

I proceeded to view my online credit report and when I tried to print it using their  "Print Report" button it did not work. With each failure at printing it opened up additional windows of the credit file. And for some reason it gave me a small window that wanted me to click ok to share my report and printer with the network. What was that about? This was the first time I had witnessed that.  I tried 3 times to print the report all to no avail and now there were a couple new windows opened into the account screen.  In order to try to retain the record of my report I had to manually copy and paste sections of the report onto a word document. That too was so difficult because you could only select small sections of text because the report was framed as a page inside another page. You could only capture a little bit of it, and parts of the report had no formatting at all so it merged all the text together into a mess. It was seriously difficult to work with.  In any respect, I could not keep the report for my records at all. 

After getting frustrated I decided I had enough and logged out of the account without having been able to print the report for my records. I logged out of the first window of the account while the other two windows were still open. Then I went to the other 2 open windows and to my surprise, even after logging out of my account, I was still able to access and navigate through my credit report account. There was also no way to sign out of those open windows which directly accessed the data in my account.  This is a security nightmare and makes us more vulnerable to the data being leaked from our account files after logging out. All websites and browsers that I ever used to log into a password account, would automatically boot you out of any open windows of their website, upon logging out. But not Equifax. I was able to work with my account and navigate to different parts of the credit file in their portal even after logging out.  The way the website worked appears to be still breached, where hackers may be using the defects in their print report function to get users to click so they end up being lured into sharing the data on the network. And allowing any navigation thru an account after logging out is reckless and very concerning. 

Each time you call Equifax you get a department that seems to be incapable of handling but one narrow question or task. Then they tell you to call a different number for the next question. They can't even transfer you to the other dept so this is a worthless solution that causes nothing short of a run around. You have to keep calling back for each different question since they have it set up so each department can only do one narrow task.  It is ridiculous at best and causes so much stress and wasted time that it can't possibly work to protect us. .  

When the mortgage industry was giving borrowers a run around sending them on a wild goose chase, the CFPB changed the law to require one point of contact. This is so much worse because with the mortgage industry at least we had a product we purchased from the industry. But with Equifax we had no relationship that we initiated and therefore, they took our information without our input and were careless with it, breached us royally, and then they send us thru a wild goose chase in trying to resolve the mess they created. Every time you talk to a live person the answers conflict with what you were told previously and it is a pathetic resolution process. How is this supposed to give us peace of mind that we are protected going forward? The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, even with their supervisors.  And I just learned that Trusted Id is a wholly owned company of Equifax. That's not reassuring at all. 

This is a process from hell which will affect our lives for years to come and after finally finishing the process of putting the credit freeze in place, I then was shown a  Disclaimer at Trusted Id which I am sharing with you here because I need help to know if this is true. This shows me that the security freeze is DEFECTIVE if it exempts all these entities in different scenarios, which are exactly the scenarios I intended to secure in the first place. This is the Disclaimer that was shown to me  in its exact format after viewing my credit report in their platform. The source code was exposed at their web site so I am putting it here as I saw it that night. 

Locking your credit file with Equifax Credit Report Control will prevent access to your Equifax credit file by certain third parties, such as credit grantors or other companies and agencies. Credit Report Control will not prevent access to your credit file at any other credit reporting agency, and will not prevent access to your Equifax credit file by companies like Equifax XXXX XXXX XXXX which provide you with access to your credit report or credit score or monitor your credit file; Federal, state and local government agencies; companies reviewing your application for employment; companies that have a current account or relationship with you, and collection agencies acting on behalf of those whom you owe; for fraud detection and prevention purposes; and companies that wish to make pre-approved offers of credit or insurance to you. To opt out of such pre-approved offers, visit XXXX.


If this Disclaimer is true, then their resolution to this breach is nothing but a waste of our time. Their Disclaimer exempts collection agencies and past relationships? How is this possible? If I lock my file I want to know it is locked from all parties unless I choose to allow it. This Disclaimer says opposite of what I understood.  This is UNACCEPTABLE because a lock should mean what it says, it is locked. Selective locking is not what we signed up for. If I had to pay a fee for two out of three credit bureaus to freeze my file, and the other bureau is required to freeze it if I choose that option, then nobody should be entitled to access my report unless I say so.  My credit file has been breached and I want it frozen from ALL parties. All those entries on my credit file are history and none of the accounts are open any longer. However, Equifax doesn't show that they are closed on my online report. It just shows the credit lines of the past.  If any of those entities want to access my file my answer is NO WAY. However, the Disclaimer says it is fine and they can access because they had a prior relationship. I refuse to give any of those entities access in the future. All a collection agent needs to say is they are acting on behalf of one of the relationships and the file will be accessible. This is DEFECTIVE. My efforts to reach someone at Equifax to verify this all failed. I was hung up on by at least two people in the process and therefore, it is now a complaint with the CFPB.

The disclaimer makes me know that even freezing the file is not going to provide us any security for the future. This is very important and I believe it warrants prompt review from our Consumer Protection Agency to get to the bottom of this defective process for the benefit of all consumers.

Thank you.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation