Consumer complaint received 2021-06-20
Company: Experian Information Solutions Inc.
State: NY
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: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
This complaint is filed against Experian for violation of Section 611 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Under Section 611 of the Fair Credit Reporting, if the completeness or accuracy of any item of information contained in a consumers file at a consumer credit reporting agency is disputed by the consumer and the consumer notifies the agency directly of such dispute, the agency shall reinvestigate free of charge and record the status of the disputed information, or delete the item from the file in accordance to paragraph 5, before the end of the 30 day period beginning on the date on which the agency receives thee notice of the dispute from th consumer. In my case, several complaints were submitted to EXPERIAN to dispute XXXX XXXX cards staring with XXXX and XXXX, to date EXPERIAN refused to delete the inaccurate items as disputed in violation of the Section 611 Section 5 for the treatment of inaccurate or unverified information requiring EXPEERIAN to promptly delete the item of information from the consumers file. 

To date, EXPERIAN has never complied with the requirements of verification according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act where signed account applications and or signed agreements by the creditor need to be produced in order to verify the accuracy of disputed items. Instead, Experian kept contacting XXXX XXXX and obtained either a verbal confirmation or written letter confirmation which are not sufficient as neither prove the legality or validity of a debt owed that is in dispute by the consumer. EXPERIAN never took the responsible steps required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act to obtain support documents that show that I applied for the two XXXX XXXX credit cards under my name as a credit applicant with my signature, a signed consumer credit card agreement or I agreed in writing to be responsible for a third partys debt. Thus, the mere fact that XXXX XXXX asserts in writing that these two credit cards are my personal responsibly and for EXPERIAN to add and report this derogatory information in my credit file with no proof only makes EXPERIAN complicit in their conduct and shows reckless behavior and lack of integrity in their business processes since their business processes are in violation on the Fair Credit Reporting Act. 

Moreover, Both EXPERIAN and XXXX XXXX should be aware that the Fair Credit Reporting Act is only concerned with consumer debt and not business debt and Experian is not a reporting agency for business debts but for consumer debt. As such, why is EXPERIAN willfully engaged in acts of harboring and facilitating false and inaccurate credit reporting of business debts passed as consumer debts by XXXX XXXX under my credit file. It is either EXPERIAN works for the benefits of XXXX XXXX and does not act as a credit reporting agency whose role is to be neutral and apply the Fair Credit Reporting Act and its enforcement as required by deleting credit items in dispute that are not legally verified to be deemed legitimate ; or it is the case that inexperienced persons at EXPERIAN do not understand the law and its applications, yet are tasked to handle disputed debts such as the ones maliciously added to my credit file. Why is XXXX XXXX insistent on pushing a claim of debt owed that can not be legally supported with legal documents. In the attached XX/XX/XXXX letter, XXXX XXXX admitted the 2 credit cards in question are business credit cards and as such, why are they reported as personal credit card. In the same XX/XX/XXXX letter attached, XXXX XXXX admits that they can not produce the credit card application document, credit card agreement to legally support their claim. In absence of such documents, XXXX XXXX has an obligation to stop pursuing their false claim and EXPERIAN has an obligation to delete the disputed items and stop relying upon verbal statements or written letters which are not legal means or legal documents that prove the legality of a claim of debt owed. 

According to Regulation V of the Fair Credit Act, the credit furnisher has a duty of implement reasonable policies and procedures regarding the accuracy and integrity of the consumer information furnisher. Accuracy means ; 1. Identify the appropriate consumer- This was not done by Experian since the 2 credit cards are business credit cards not issued to individuals but to businesses and Experian is not in the business of accepting and tracking business credit card reporting to a consumer credit agency. How was identity verified by EXPERIAN? It was not. According to the XX/XX/XXXX attached letter XXXX XXXX conceded that they are not able to produce any signed credit application and signed credit card agreement that prove their claim. 
2. Reflects terms of the account and liability- Experian needed to ascertain the personal responsibility claim advanced by XXXX XXXX XXXX This was not done. The credit card agreement needed to be furnished to Experian in order for Experian to validate the claim of personal responsibility is accurate. This According to the XX/XX/XXXX attached letter, XXXX XXXX conceded that they are not able to produce any signed credit application and signed credit card agreement that prove their claim. 
3. Reflects the consumers performance with respect to the account- This should have been a huge red flag for lack of legitimacy and lack of integrity on reporting since EXPERIAN should have been staffed with experienced people with good judgment to determine whether they should have accepted the derogatory information submitted in XXXX by XXXX XXXX for 2 credit cards that XXXX XXXX claimed are my personal responsibility and these two cards were opened in XXXX and XXXX. An experienced person with good judgment at EXPERIAN should have questioned why there was no consumer credit reporting for card starting with XXXX opened since XXXX which was never reported in 5 years to Experian as required to be reported every 30 days as long as the account is opened. Yet, 5 years later, XXXX XXXX sent to EXPERIAN a file with negative information for credit card account XXXX and Experian decided that it was acceptable to dump this new negative data for a credit card claimed issued 5 years earlier since XXXX with no trace of me associated to card XXXX since its issuance in XXXX. Similarly, credit card account XXXX issued in XXXX was never reported in 3 years to Experian as required to be reported every 30 days for consumer credit accounts as long as the account is opened. Yet, 3 years later, XXXX XXXX sent EXPERIAN a file with negative information for credit card account XXXX which was never part of my consumer credit file. 
The two credit card accounts XXXX and XXXX were never reported since XXXX and XXXX respectively at inception because they were not consumer credit debts but business credit cards for which I had no personal responsibility. Had they been consumer credit card accounts or business credit card for which I have personal responsibility, they would have been reported since XXXX and XXXX. Thus, these two credit cards are reported as inappropriate business credit data dump in a consumer credit after the business as the credit card holder reported to XXXX XXXX that the business stopped operations in XXXX. Nevertheless, XXXX XXXX decided in XXXX that they would pursue business debts collection which were charged off by passing them as consumer credit charge off on my credit report to Experian when a consumer credit charge off can only be reported when there is a history of existing credit account with the credit reporting agency that went into late pay delinquencies for several months before reporting them as charge off. Thus, XXXX XXXX can not charge off credit card accounts that were not previously reported to the credit agencies. XXXX XXXX already admitted in writing to me and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by way of their response XX/XX/XXXX letter attached for several Consumer Financial Protection Bureau claims filed against them admitting the 2 XXXX XXXX credit cards are in fact business credit cards and unable to produce legal documents to support third claim of debts owed despite producing such letter to Experian, why does EXPERIAN continue to report these 2 credit cards as personal responsibility. Such erroneous and reckless business practice is only meant to deliberately hurt me as a consumer in favor of XXXX XXXX. In other words, EXPERIAN is not an independent credit reporting agency that honestly reviews disputes and weigh all facts according to the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and use of common sense and good judgment to reach the right conclusion which is to delete the disputed claims that can not be supported by legal documents for their validity. 
Additionally, EXPERIAN added in my credit file for their dispute results that credit card starting with XXXX was issued in XXXX and credit card starting in XXXX was issued in XXXX to give the appearance that these 2 credit cards were legitimate debts as represented by XXXX XXXX false claim of debts owed. Both claims are misleading statements of harm added to my credit file. 
While it is true that these two credit cards were issued in XXXX and XXXX, however they were not issued to me which is why there is no history of such cards in my consumer credit file until XXXX because these 2 cards were issued as business credit cards and not consumer credit cards for which I have personal responsibility as viciously claimed by XXXX XXXX and as recklessly added recently in my credit file by EXPERIAN on XX/XX/XXXX which caused my XXXX XXXX to drop XXXX points from XXXX to XXXX. There is no doubt that EXPERIAN has engaged in unethical conduct by supporting spurious claims and refused to thoroughly investigate the false claim according to the legal requirements for disputed items on credit files. Moreover, these XXXX points drop in credit rating was viciously produced by EXPERIAN in retaliation and revenge with intent to cause harm and cripple my ability to get access to mortgage credit for which I applied in XX/XX/XXXX which is still pending a mortgage approval decision which will end up in declination due to EXPERIAN retaliatory act against me since nothing changed in my credit file to cause this drop except abusive conduct by EXPERIAN and its employees. These XXXX credit drop occurred simultaneously on XX/XX/XXXX upon EXPERIAN responding to both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to me on XX/XX/XXXX in response to a complaint filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on XX/XX/XXXX against EXPERIAN and an additional complaint filed on XX/XX/XXXX with EXPERIAN against their own conduct in the treatment of the two XXXX XXXX credit cards being disputed. 

XXXX XXXX insistence that these 2-credit card are my personal responsibility is in gross violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act Section 623-a which prohibits reporting of inaccurate information to a credit reporting agency since these 2 credit cards are business credit cards taken in a business name as a C Corporation is not consumer cards for which I have personal responsibility. Thus, passing business credit cards as if they are personal credit cards are in violation of Section 623-a of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Their insistence now exposes XXXX XXXX to liability for violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act since credit cards for which they claim bare personal responsibility were never reported as they should for more than 5 years for card XXXX and for more than 3 years for card XXXX and only were reported in XXXX after the business closed. 

As such XXXX XXXX will have no choice except to admit they wrongdoing by deleting these two credit cards from my Experian credit file or I will filed additional complaints to be investigated and possibly prosecuted by the Federal Trade Commissions for violation of the Fair Credit Report Act and further investigation and possible citations and fines by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and other State and Federal government agencies with oversight over XXXX XXXX as a financial institution and a charted bank. It is either XXXX XXXX was wrong and delete these 2 credit cards from my personal credit file or be ready to face investigations and possible prosecution i for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act and bank fraud since XXXX XXXX has a bank charter for continuing to advance the false claim that unethical employees in collection have advanced with or without the knowledge of their senior executive for acts of fraud and dishonesty.

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