Consumer complaint received 2021-08-27
Company: Experian Information Solutions Inc.
State: KS
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 XX/XX/2021, I went online at Experian, of which I have a credit monitoring account, to check my account and make sure there were no freezes, fraud, or locks on my account. The online system said it was unlocked with no fraud reports or freezes. While I am online, looking at my report, my bank ran my reports and Experian came back as locked. I am looking at my account, online, and it still says unlocked. I refresh the screen and it turns to locked. I did not lock it. In XXXX, the account was locked, which I did not do, so I unlocked it. Evidently it did not work. I spoke with 3 different people at Experian that day. One person said it was unlocked and had never been locked. One person said it had been locked since XXXX and was unlocked that day. One person said it was " common '' problem people were having and transferred me to the dispute department. The dispute department couldn't help me at all and wanted to transfer me back to membership. The call was disconnected. My banker called the third party, XXXX XXXX, who actually ran the report to find out what we could do. She also spoke with members of the bank to see how to resolve this issue without having to run another credit check with all three reporting agencies at an additional cost. There is no solution there. The report has to be run again at a cost of {$40.00}. So two reports cost me {$80.00} when it should not have to be run again if the Experian system worked properly. I called Experian membership again on XX/XX/2021, to check to see that the report will clear for sure and got another " this is a common problem '' but they show my account has no locks, freezes, or fraud. Their comment was it " supposedly '' should clear. They could not assure the report would clear because of this " common problem '' and had no concern that this not only cost me {$40.00} more dollars, but could cause me not to be able to get my home refinance even though the other reports show excellent credit score. I was disconnected. I called Experian membership again on XX/XX/2021. It took 7 attempts to get through the automated system that is garbled, cuts out and says " sorry '' it could not help me, " sorry '' it can not connect me to customer service for anything other than the choices given which had nothing to do with my problem. Several attempts ended with " Sorry, I can not help you, call back again '' by the automated system. I didn't always get the same message, and after many attempts to get through by pushing whatever choices were available I finally get a human. This person also tells me this lock-unlock issue is a common problem and she will give me a direct number for the bank to call to get my report over the phone. The call was disconnected before I got the number. I make two more attempted calls and finally get a human named XXXX. She said she had not heard of the lock-unlock issue being a common problem and there is no number she can give me for the bank to call directly. She asked if I was speaking to someone at Experian because there was no record of me ever having called into Experian this year. I told I called the number on the website, and the story of how many people I spoke with and she finally found that I had spoken with someone. I told her to report that someone is giving out bad information from Experian and it needs to be fixed. She assured me my account was unlocked and gave me a direct number to membership. She also said they are working on adding this phone number to the website so people can call directly to membership. It's a mess. This company literally has the well being of peoples lives in their system and have absolutely no accountability. I have not heard from my bank if the report cleared this time. But I will tell you, {$40.00} is a lot of money to me and now it's up to {$80.00}. These companies need to be held accountable for the information they spew. This is my first bad experience with Experian. What a mess. Please make them accountable.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation