Consumer complaint received 2016-11-30
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: TN
Product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit reporting company's investigation
Sub-issue: Problem with statement of dispute

Complaint:
When the information from XXXX first went on my credit report over one year ago my credit score dropped by over XXXX points. It was a voluntary surrender of a XXXX. I voluntarily assumed responsibility of the residual and have never missed a payment. It was reported as a charge off but also a repossession. I did not pursue having anything done with it until recently. Today I received a reply from Equifax. 

Supposedly the derogatory remark ( repossession ) was removed from the file and I now have no accounts with derogatory statements. However, they dropped my credit score XXXX more points. The only other change to my report by them was a credit card balance increase of {$740.00}. I have no accounts with late payments. I have no accounts with any type derogatory information. There is absolutely no justification for this drop except for retaliation. I filed a complaint with my bank concerning unauthorized charges having been placed on my credit card by Equifax. 
When I first became aware that my credit score had dropped ( thru XXXX ) I had gone on line to retrieve my free credit report to see what had caused the drop. I signed into Equifax '' s web site. I could not find any way of getting a free report on the site. They did however offer a report for {$1.00}. I decided that it was only {$1.00} so I gave them my credit card number. Apparently somewhere in some small print that request committed me to a monthly report that they would charge me {$29.00} a month for. I did not become aware until they had already charged me for two months. Although I never received or in any way accessed these so called monthly reports I was unable to get any part of the {$58.00} returned. In fact the only way I could prevent future charges was to cancel the credit card that they were using and have a new card issued. To make this matter worse, my bank informed me that this was a common complaint about Equifax and that they had encountered it many times. I wrote a letter to them telling them what I thought of their actions. 

If there is not going to be some type of regulation to cover this type activity then everyone needs to be made aware to never file a complaint to them or about them. Your credit score is very important. That they can arbitrarily drop it so drastically without repercussions and no recourse to the consumer is unacceptable. 

As stated before I only had those two changes to my report. The removal of it being a repossession was a positive. I had already been punished by a drop of over XXXX points for a simple voluntary surrender. In that case I did not have much option. I was ordered by divorce court to sell it. I was so upside down with the loan I could not do so. By turning it back to the bank they were able to get a big chunk of their money back when they sold it. I immediately started making payments on the residual and have not missed a payment on that in the past two years. That only leaves the additional charge to my credit card of the {$740.00}. So they dropped my score almost XXXX point for every {$10.00} that I charged. I see no justification whatsoever for this action.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation