Consumer complaint received 2023-01-23
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem — Difficulty submitting a dispute or getting information about a dispute over the phone
Company: Credit Karma (NV)

Today is XX/XX/2023. I began my day by trying to file my taxes on XXXX XXXX. Just before you file, it gives you the option to apply to get an advance on your tax refund. I clicked this option and it redirected me to Credit Karma to open a Credit Karma Money XXXX account. Apparently, in order to get an advance it has to go through this 3rd party instead of directly with your bank account. Ive been using Credit Karma for years to check my credit report, so when it redirected me and told me that I couldnt open a XXXX XXXX Account because it couldnt verify my identity, I was a little confused. I called the company to find out why it couldnt verify my identity and the 1st representative told me that they would have to look into further and they would email me. I never received and email, so I called again. The 2nd representative said the same thingonly this time when he sent me an email it said, I have looked into it and it appears we are unable to create your account at this time as we were unable to verify your personal information. I understand it may be disappointing that we couldn't open an account for you. We are working to improve this process so that more of our members are able to open accounts. We are so sorry for this inconvenience and we appreciate your feedback.

When you open a bank account with any US based financial institution, federal regulations require the financial institution to verify your identity before allowing you to open an account. This is a requirement on financial institutions that includes specific requirements that may not always align with other systems such as credit reporting. Even if your XXXX XXXX account shows your credit reports, the information associated with your account may not fully satisfy the requirements for opening a Credit Karma Money Spend or Save account. 

You are welcome to visit us at creditkarma.com and use all the other available features and services. I did some research on their website and it said, If you receive the error message We werent able to create your account when you try to open a new Credit Karma Money XXXX or Save account, it means our system was unable to fully validate your identity and you will be unable to open a Credit Karma Money XXXX or Save account at this time. 

You can contact our support team and we will work with you to manually validate your information. You may need to submit documentation confirming your name, address, or date of birth from our list of acceptable documents. So I contacted them a 3rd time. This time the representative said that they couldnt help me because I had already spoke with two other people and I would need to contact them to continue the process. This upset me because it was a call center and there was no way to contact these other representatives. I asked to speak with a supervisor. I told the supervisor that I could provide the physical documentation to verify my identity and he said that even though it says that on the website, that he can not do that. And then I thought for a second and realized that this is fraud. If they can not verify my identity, then why is it that I have access to all of my credit information through their website? They are literally giving me access to my credit scores and reports. Every single address I have ever lived at. All of my personal information. If they can not verify my identity, then they should not be allowing me access to this information. 

Now I can provide all of the physical documentation to verify my identity. But its fraud to give me access to this information if they can not verify my identity. Also, if their website says that they can manually verify my identity, then they need to do that.