Consumer complaint received 2022-01-03
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: GA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Information belongs to someone else

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2022, I received notification from both my XXXX XXXX app and XXXX XXXX app that I received an inquiry on my credit report from Equifax XXXX. Knowing that I've been keeping a close eye on my credit as I'm preparing to apply for something in the future I jumped on this quickly as I have no business with Equifax XXXX to date. I first called Equifax XXXX on Sunday, XX/XX/2022, but they were unable to research further as I'm a US citizen. They provided me with a US contact, they too were unable to assist as they didn't have authorization ( something like that ) to look further beyond the name. The last guy told me to call Equifax XXXX back on Monday to which I replied I talked with them that morning. He believed that I was routed to a global contact center and that I should try the new number he gave me Monday morning. So on XX/XX/XXXX, I called Equifax XXXX and explained my issue and that I was trying to verify the inquiry/dispute it. He too told me that because I'm in the US to contact the US office. So he provides me with a new number, I call it and the young lady explains that she can have a letter sent to me to explain further ( I found out later that what she was attempting to do was submit a dispute on my behalf ) in a week or two. Because I didn't want to wait, I asked if there was a way to escalate. She stated that there was a specific group that could help but they'd ask me for one of two items ... .I 'm not sure of the first one but the other would be a police report. Still bothered by the fact that I'm talking to Equifax about an Equifax transaction I agreed to the letter AND to be connected to the specific group that was mentioned. As she completed providing me with the dispute confirmation # we got disconnected. I waited for my phone to recharge, called back, informed the rep of my previous call and he was able to connect me to that specific group mentioned earlier. During that call, I was told that they couldn't investigate any further given so few details were provided in the inquiry and that even though it mentions Equifax XXXX to not get confused as Equifax XXXX would not pull your US Equifax report anyway so most likely fraud. That's all I really wanted to hear and know. So he provided verbal instructions on what else I needed to provide to them which includes the following : a letter explaining what's happened ( like this one ), Driver 's License copy, SSN card copy, and a letter from the FTC. I pushed further for more instructions around the FTC letter and he seemed annoyed and simply told me to look it up and the instructions would be on there. Well, the instructions on the FTC site brought me here to the CFPB complaint form. All in all, this is my formal complaint regarding the inquiry but may in fact be twofold considering what I've gone through to attempt a good faith effort to verify. Given his attitude at the end and the fact that we were also disconnected before I completed my questions, I'm starting to wonder if I've been sharing my information with the right people and not fraudsters. Thank you for reading. 
MH

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation