Consumer complaint received 2022-04-12
Company: Affirm Holdings, Inc
State: CA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
On XX/XX/21 I made a purchase from a merchant and decided to use Affirm service to pay for it Unfortunately much of the order arrived damaged and had to be returned. After returning the items to the merchant, a serious of refunds were issued, with several of the refunds applied as credits towards my account with Affirm, while a few were not. The merchant stated they had issued the full amount of the refunds as credits back to Affirm, but Affirms records did not match. I made several contacts with the Merchant before finally decided that the best course of action would be to initiate a dispute for the missing credits with Affirm, which I did on XX/XX/XXXX. Also on XXXX XXXX, I prepaid the remaining balanced I owed to Affirm for this purchase less the amount that was being disputed. On XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX. from Affirm responded and said that since the merchant had issued some credits towards the loan, he had determine that my dispute was unnecessary and never actually initiated the dispute processes ( even though I had already acknowledged those credits when I initiated the dispute process and stated the disputed amount was for credits in addition to those already showing on my Affirm account ). Then for the next week Affirm ignored every daily attempt I made to have someone actually initiate the dispute process but on XX/XX/XXXX, two days before the next payment would be due ( which had already been partial paid, with the remaining amount due being part of the dispute I had been led to believe I opened on XX/XX/XXXX ) I was able to live chat with an Affirm representative to discus the situation. During our chat the agent stated that she wasn't able to initiate disputes but would send a message to the proper team and that she would also move my upcoming payment due date to XXXX. XXXX to allow time for the dispute to be opened, at which time I would not be required to make the payment. ( Affirm Case ID XXXX ). Unfortunately none of what she told me was true and on XX/XX/XXXX Affirm began deploying its collections tactics on me in an attempt to get me to pay them for the disputed amount. At that point I found the phone number for Affirm on XXXX ( they made it nearly impossible to find on their website ) and initiated a call with an Affirm agent, who ultimately put me through to a member of management. The manager I spoke with stated that I should have never been told they could move my due date, which as I explained to him was a training issue they needed to address and that they needed to ensure that I was still protected from further collection attempts and any attempts to damage my credit. He advised me that he would escalate my dispute to the right department who would contact me and begin to dispute at which point I wouldn't be responsible for a payment until they resolve the dispute. Unfortunately no one reached out to me and over the course of the next 16 days I mad over 20 attempts to get in contact with someone each of which went ignored. Finally on XXXX. XXXX I was finally able to get someone to acknowledge me, who initiated the dispute, and XXXX. XXXX responding to my concerns that they were still showing the payment on my account as late, I got a response from XXXX XXXX which states in part " Additionally, I see you mentioned you are worried your credit score will be affected by the overdue payment on your loan. Rest assured this loan is currently not being reported to the credit bureau, thus your credit will not be affected. '' Then on XX/XX/XXXX XXXX M from affirm closed my dispute citing the same reason why XXXX XXXX chose not to initiate the claim when I submitted it back in XXXX. This was clear evidence that XXXX neither gave any amount of effort and time to investigate my dispute and that he lacked the knowledge and/ or experience to be trusted to make decisions on the outcome of consumer disputes. 

At this point I went from annoyed to quite angry and threatened legal action, which finally prompted a reply on XXXX XXXX from XXXX XXXX with Affirm stating that she had reviewed my dispute and account prompting her to process my dispute and found in my favor based on the documents that had been supplied. She informed me that she would work to reverse any negative information, if any had been reported to the credit bureaus, which thankfully had not been. Then 5 days AFTER the dispute was resolved in my favor, meaning not only was the account paid in full, but they actually had to provide me with a partial refund to do overpayment, Affirm falsely reported the account as deliquent to XXXX and caused a XXXX point drop in my credit score.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation