Consumer complaint received 2022-02-28
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: NC
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:
I have XXXX collection account on Equifax for a medical bill for an ambulance ride after a car accident in XXXX XXXX. It's for {$290.00}. Equifax is the only credit bureau who refuses to fix this error on my report. I've been on XXXX since birth. I've had XXXX  and XXXX my entire life. They pay % XXXX of my hospital bills and Dr bills and % 100 of my perscriptions. I have had a {$0.00} copay my entire life. I've been in an ambulance more than once in my life, every other ambulance bill has been paid for in full by my insurance. I have submitted dispute after dispute to Equifax to fix this situation on my credit report with no success. XXXX does not show this account as a collection on my report. I have zero accounts in collections with XXXX. I also have zero accounts in collections XXXX. Equifax is the only credit bureau that refuses to remove this incorrect collection account off my report. Is the one thing that I believe has been holding me back from being able to access any sort of relief loans or any line of credit going all the way back for the past 7 years. I have had zero credit cards and zero loan offers for years and years in a row now and when I try to apply Time After Time again the fact that I have had no credit cards or loans on my credit history ends up being a negative and ends up being one of the reasons why I continuously and being denied every single application again and again. The only thing that is showing on any of my accounts is this one collection account and it is only on Equifax. Every other category on all three credit bureau credit reports has had a big fat zero listed for years and years in a row because I can't seem to qualify for anything even when I was making more money than I am now I never qualified for anything and I believe it's because of this incorrect collection account information for this one medical bill that only Equifax can't seem to figure out and fix. I have been in need of relief assistance due to income loss because of covid-19 for the past 2 years. My XXXX assistance had been cut off due to the normal XXXX reinstatement process that happens every so many years. I had the Social Security office help with my reinstatement application over the phone by a phone call appointment in XXXX of XXXX and I have been under claim status since then. They are backlogged they told me because of covid-19 and that is why I haven't received my payments for over half a year now! It would have been really really nice if Equifax would have gotten this error fixed a long long time ago so that I would be able to qualify for some sort of relief assistance. I live on my own and it has been very hard for me. I believe that Equifax has not done everything they can for me like they should be doing. I have submitted a dispute just about every XXXX  months straight for the past two plus years going back for how many years now in a row. And nothing ever has been taken care of. Sometimes I haven't even been able to access my dispute results even though it says completed and that I have a confirmation dispute number and everything when I click on dispute results for certain past disputes for this collection account the link doesn't even work and I have never been able to see the results for a few of the times I have disputed this same collection account! Every other time the result comes back that my dispute has been denied and they continue to list this medical bill under collections in my name. Even though I have made it known to them multiple times that they are the only credit bureau who lists this collection account on my credit report, and even though it's listed as a medical bill from XXXX and I have continuously put in my dispute that I had medical insurance coverage at this time and it should have been billed properly and that this billing error was not my fault, Equifax continues to list this collections in my name. A few years ago I even called XXXX and spoke with a woman who told me to put a statement on my credit report listing that I dispute this information as inaccurate and that it was a medical bill that needed to have a billing error fixed. She actually told me how to word it and everything so that it would most accurately describe my situation and so that it would be worded the most proper way on my report under my comments section for this specific collection account. She told me how to go about reporting it to try to take care of it but it never worked out for me and I have been trying to deal with it ever since. It is very very frustrating and it is not fair that it is on one credit report but not the others but yet it's still holds me back from being able to do anything. I can't even rebuild my credit which remains extremely low no matter what I do despite of the fact that I have zero listed under every other category on all three reports and zero listed under all categories under XXXX and XXXX. Equifax has been unfairly holding me back and refusing to fix this issue. They have been holding me back from being able to receive any covid-19 relief assistance by negatively impacting credit card and loan applications so that I received denials on everything year after year after year. They also incorrectly list my current address as a former address and my former address as my current address and when I try to dispute this information to update my correct address it's not even one of the options under this type of dispute. But it says in their information on the Equifax site that incorrect addresses past or current can and should be disputed in order to be fixed. Well then why is it not an option for me to say that they have my current address listed as my former address and my former address incorrectly listed as my current address? The only options they actually do have don't fit my situation. They have the option to dispute it if it is an address that belongs to someone else, or if I never lived there in the first place, they have a few other options but nothing accurately describes the fact that they have my former and my current addresses switched around but that they both are addresses that have been in my name and are in my name currently! It is very very frustrating to get the run around over and over and over again and to get nowhere with something that is extremely obvious and extremely unfair. Equifax has unfairly been holding me back from accessing any sort of credit or loan assistance relief when I need it the most! I do not understand why they are the only credit bureau who refuses to correct the inaccurate information on my report. I just don't know what else to do. This is extremely overwhelming and exhausting. I need help trying to get my credit information updated and accurately reported. I want this fixed and I want it to be over and done with. It has taken up too much of my time and has been extremely exhausting. This inaccuracy has caused excess financial stress and has caused my mental health to suffer drastically because of additional unnecessary anxieties and added stressors which has increased my mental health chemical imbalances directly causing my physical health to suffer due to increased activity with muscle spasms and uncontrollable muscle movements causing an extreme amount of unnecessary increase in my pain and my nerve activity flaring up my XXXX and my other chemical imbalance issues. This has caused me to increase my XXXX  visits to help cope as well as adding new doctors and twice weekly physical therapy appointments to help with the increase in my physical health and the level of pain that has been increased because of all of the financial stressors and roadblocks that have been caused because Equifax has refused to correct these inaccuracies which has resulted in preventing qualification for me to access every single loan assistance or credit card application that I've attempted to apply for to try to get some sort of financial relief because of covid 19 and my current financial situation. I am extremely frustrated at this point and I am not sure what else to do. I need help figuring this out. I'm at my Witt 's end with this and I've about lost all hope to ever getting my credit report with Equifax updated to include all accurate information on my behalf. This is extremely unfair of Equifax to continue to put me in this predicament. Especially when they're the only credit bureau that lists this incorrect information in the first place! Someone please help me since I can't seem to get anyone at Equifax to do anything about this for me on my own! I have a current dispute in progress for this incorrect collections account but I do not believe I am going to get any different result than I have every other single dispute I have submitted about this very same incorrect collections account. I just don't understand. I'm about fed up with Equifax and their unfair treatment of my credit information. Their refusal to accurately update my information goes against what they claim they do as a company for us as consumers. I don't understand how any of this is legal for them to keep this up for this many years in a row. They should be held accountable for this and made to correct my credit report. They should not be allowed to unfairly hold me back from accessing every single type of credit and loan that could be useful in offering me any sort of financial relief. It seems like instead of working for me they have been working against me this entire time. I'm extremely upset about this unfair treatment and I want something done about it!!! I need help figuring this out since I seem to have failed for the past how many years trying to figure out how to get this resolved on my own. I just don't know what to do. Nothing I have done seems to produce any sort of results leading to correcting and accurately updating my information on my credit report with Equifax. It is totally unfair that they are the only credit bureau that refuses to resolve this inaccuracy. It should be illegal for them to do this to me and hold me back from accessing and qualifying from everything just because they simply refuse to remove this incorrect negative information on my credit report! This has been extremely unfair to me and I'm exhausted and overwhelmed over the increase in financial stress this has caused me. I'm very angry about this unfair treatment I've been receiving from Equifax this entire time. This has been extremely stressful. I'm very upset about it. I want this resolved now! What can I do to make that happen? I want my credit report fixed to show all accurate and updated information for all of my personal info and every single one of my accounts. I want this taken care of! And I want this unfair treatment stopped.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation