Consumer complaint received 2021-02-17
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: PA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Problem with personal statement of dispute

Complaint:
I was unfairly reported for late mortgage payment by XXXX XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. 


Ever since I bought my house in XXXX, I was never late on payments ever before this whole situation. I truly believe that the only reason I was late was due to terrible communication XXXX XXXX provided toward their customer, and I have to pay the unfair price for it. It is extremely disheartening and disgusting to see how unforgiving and unempathetic XXXX XXXX is to their customers who were affected by the pandemic. 


Here is what happened : In XX/XX/XXXX, my VA loan was transferred over to XXXX XXXX from XXXX XXXX. Right after, I enrolled in automatic payment so I never have to worry about missing a payment by accident. Then, Covid 19 Pandemic began and I was financially affected, which made me enroll in XXXX XXXX 's forbearance plan in XX/XX/XXXX. Eventually, I was able to recover and pay off the entire amount I owed by XX/XX/XXXX, and ended the forbearance plan. 


During the pandemic, I have communicated with XXXX XXXX numerous times while on forbearance plan to make sure I do everything right on my part so that my credit score is not affected. However, not even once, have they mentioned anything about re-enrolling to automatic payment after getting out of forbearance plan, which leaves vulnerable customers like myself to assume that I am still enrolled in the automatic payment system. 


On top of that, during the whole 40 days of my mortgage payment being late, I have not received any phone calls or written documents or email notifying that my payment has not been received. XXXX XXXX claims that they called me twice, but what does it do if they couldnt actually reach me because I am busy during the day working? Nothing. My laptop has been broken since XXXX, so I dont get to access my account often either. 


I was totally oblivious of the situation until XX/XX/XXXX. The only reason I realized I was late on payment was because I was talking to a loan officer from another bank for refinancing my mortgage to save money because I am still affected by the pandemic. The officer informed me that XXXX XXXX filed a late mortgage payment, and there I can not refinance my mortgage. I was devastated but immediately paid the difference and re-enrolled automatic payment plan in order to make things right. Then, I called XXXX XXXX and filed a dispute explaining the whole situation. The customer service lady understood the situation and was positive about getting the whole situation fixed. 


Then, I received the decision letter from XXXX XXXX ( see the attached ), simply stating that there was no error reporting my credit history, which is totally missing the main point of the discussion and only looking at the simple numbers and dates. 


For XXXX XXXX, I might be just another customer with late payment, but this affects everything I do. As a young professional affected by the worldwide pandemic, I am just trying to survive and get back up on my feet, but it is extremely heart-aching to see how XXXX XXXX doesn't want to own up for their mistake and doesnt care about damaging its customer, instead of helping out. 


I want to re-emphasize that I have never missed a payment before and it was never my intention to be late. All I ask of you is to please consider every circumstances, and make a fair judgment. 


Thank you for your time, XXXX XXXX, XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation