Consumer complaint received 2022-10-11
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: Experian Information Solutions Inc. (PA)

On XX/XX/XXXX I received a notification from one of my credit monitoring services that there had been a change in my credit report. About an hour later I received a call from XXXX XXXX that my account was past due.This was a surprise to me since I have had this account since XXXX ( 10 years ) and have always had it on auto-pay ( as I do with all of my accounts ). 

I had not used the card ( there was a {$0.00} balance ) for quite some time prior to the recent purchases I made, so no payments were coming out of the account. I assumed that the autopay was still in place, but apparently it was not. 

I immediately paid the {$120.00} balance due. I then called XXXX and explained the situation, they refunded the {$40.00} in late fees as a one-time courtesy since I have been making on-time payments for 10 years. I asked them to remove the delinquent payment report to the credit bureaus and the representative said that she would " see what they could do ''. I then filed a dispute with Experian which was the only bureau reporting the account delinquent at the time. My credit score dropped XXXX points due to this. 

Today I received a letter in the mail from one of my credit card accounts, XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX informing me that they were closing my account due to my credit score drop and " serious delinquency '' on my credit report. This is completely unjust. 

Missing one payment on one account by accident in 10 years is hardly " serious delinquency '! As it happens, the XXXX credit card was one that I haven't used in some time, but I kept it in case of emergencies which is what responsible people do. 

So, there are several issues here, all of which are unjust : 1 ) XXXX should have revoked the delinquency report. I made the payment as soon as I was made aware and they refunded the fees as a result of my excellent payment history. It's not right that a company can cause such damage for such a minor and isolated offense. That " serious delinquency '' will appear on my credit report for 7 years and have a significant impact on my ability to secure credit. That is just not right! 

2 ) The credit bureaus should have to make sure that a delinquent report is legitimately a case of serious delinquency before characterizing it as such on someone's credit report.

3 ) Inadvertent and/or isolated missed payments should not be characterized as " serious delinquency '' and should not be carried for 7 years. That's excessively punitive.

4 ) Banks should not be allowed to just cancel credit card accounts based on this kind of mis-information. Aside from this infraction I have an excellent payment record across all of my accounts and my credit utilization is currently at 24 % ( mainly due to a recent home improvement ) which is below average.

This incident is a blatant case of consumer bullying by large corporations who know that they can act with impunity. Thankfully, I am not in the position to need to secure a mortgage or a car loan or any other kind of loan in the near future, but what if I was? I would sustain a large penalty and possibly not even be able to get the loan because I inadvertently missed one {$40.00} credit card payment in 10 years. This is complete injustice and consumers like me should be protected from it.

Please make this right.