Consumer complaint received 2024-07-11
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report — Reporting company used your report improperly
Company: EQUIFAX, INC. (NC)

As a federally protected consumer under the FCRA and various other laws, I am filing this complaint to report the illegal actions of Equifax. Equifax reports 22 soft inquiries for various pre-qualifications and promotional offers, despite the fact that I never authorized them to share my information with any of these companies. Equifax also reports a hard inquiry made by XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX that I did not authorize and was not connected to any transaction I initiated. 15 USC 1681b explicitly states that consumer reporting agencies can only furnish a consumer report in accordance with the written instruction of the consumer to who it relates and 15 USC 1681c prohibits consumer reporting agencies from making any consumer report that contains " any adverse information. '' This inquiry is damaging to my score and is therefore adverse information. When I called Equifax on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX to have the inquiry removed, the agent I first spoke with, XXXX XXXX told me that company policy would not allow her to remove any of the inquiries. She told me that in order to have the hard inquiry removed I would have to contact the creditor who initiated the inquiry and ask them to remove it from my report. She also told me there was no way to remove the soft inquiries. I explained according to the FCRA ( and specifically the laws stated above ) it is the consumer reporting agencys responsibility to ensure and maintain both the accuracy of my report and the absence of any adverse information, not mine. She told me my only other option was to submit an identity theft report with a dispute and hope that it was approved. At that point I asked to speak to a supervisor and after several minutes was connected with XXXX. He told me he would initiate a dispute ( XXXX XXXXXXXX ) for the hard inquiry and that I would need to upload a police report for a fraudulent inquiry to the dispute. I called local law enforcement and reported the fraudulent XXXX inquiry to XXXX XXXX of XXXX, NC, Police Department, Reference XXXX XXXXXXXX. There was no way to add any of this documentation to the Equifax dispute. When I asked, XXXX also assured me that Equifax does not sell my credit information to anyone for the purpose of promotional inquiries nor am I on any sort of list for such purpose, which is verifiably untrue. The following day, XX/XX/XXXX, I received notification of Equifaxs dispute investigation results, which state INQUIRIES ARE A FACTUAL RECORD OF FILE ACCESS AND WILL REMAIN ON THE EQUIFAX CREDIT FILE TWO YEARS FROM THE REPORTED DATE OF THE INQUIRY ( document attached ). This response demonstrates that they did not attempt to verify whether the inquiry was authorized by me, nor did they investigate whether I initiated a transaction to trigger the inquiry. They also do not acknowledge the laws I cited to their representative who filed the dispute for me and told me that it was Equifax policy not to make the changes required to comply with the FCRA. As they have been notified of the laws they are breaking, and continue to report these inquiries, Equifax is wilfully violating the FCRA. Per 16 CFR 313, they must pay penalties of {$1000.00} per violation and the maximum damages for pain and suffering that the courts allow.