Consumer complaint received 2019-04-17
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Credit monitoring or identity theft protection services — Didn't receive services that were advertised
Company: EQUIFAX, INC. (VA)

I had Equifax monitoring service from approx XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX. I received the service at a discount through my credit union XXXX XXXX paying approx $ 7- {$9.00} a month. Equifax credit monitoring service included free copies of my credit report, score, ID theft and credit monitoring as well as Identity theft insurance. I placed a fraud alert on my credit profile with Equifax and was notified they would forward the fraud alert to XXXX and XXXX as well. In early XX/XX/XXXX-XX/XX/XXXX time frame I noticed my service was cancelled without any  notification from Equifax. NOTHING! How I discovered my service was cancelled was logging in to check on my credit profile to see how things were when I noticed I didn't have access to my credit profile. When I called to inquire about this, the representative saw my service was cancelled because i had an old credit card on file and needed to update. I asked her why wasn't I notified of this. The rep was just as surprised as I was and TOLD me she did not see any notifications sent to me about the billing and apologized. We corrected the billing, added a new card and service started again. In XX/XX/XXXX I started noticing I was receiving a lot of fraudulent activity, such as phishing emails, phone calls from people trying to come off as potential employers trying to offer jobs and positions and then asking me to VERIFY my social and date of birth. Key word is they were asking me to VERIFY my PII not asking me to give them my PII but to verify it. Which meant they already had copies of my information. I ignored these things because I knew I was okay and my credit profile was protected because I had renewed my fraud alerts every 3 months. Well in XX/XX/XXXX Equifax notified everyone they had a data breach. But that the data breach happened many months before XX/XX/XXXX. I was notified by Equifax that my information was among the millions who's information was confiscated. I logged into my Equifax profile to check on my account and to my surprise once again my account had been cancelled WITH NO NOTIFICATION and no telling how long it had been that way. I was then offered free credit monitoring ( Trusted ID theft protection ) service in XX/XX/XXXX/XX/XX/XXXX that cancelled in XX/XX/XXXX. I called Equifax to inquire why I no longer had access to my file despite that they were still sending me alerts about changes to my file which worried me, but I could not access to view the changes because Equifax locked me out of the Trusted ID theft monitoring service. They ( Equifax ) advised me to continue the free service with XXXX and that they sent me an email advising of this. When I followed the instructions to continue service with XXXX ( Which was approx XX/XX/XXXX ) it seems as though I was set up on a free trial ( per XXXX rep told me ) and not the Free year ID Theft monitoring service because, XXXX   charged me {$9.00} on XX/XX/XXXX for services. I called and inquired why I was being charged when I was supposed to be on the free year ID theft monitoring. I was told I was not and that enrollment ended in XX/XX/XXXX. However, I was receiving free montioring service from XXXX for approx 3 months before being charge. I am sure you can understand the confusion. I was then connected with the ID Theft monitoring department and was told they only received some of my information from Equifax but not the full enrollment. I was then told to call Equifax as there was nothing that XXXX could do ( says the XXXX rep/ ). I called Equifax and explained what was going on advising I needed to be back on the free credit monitoring service with Equifax and XXXX and not sure what happened and why I wasn't set up properly. Of course like always Equifax says there is nothing they can do but to offer me a paid subscription for monitoring. Same thing I was told by XXXX. Meanwhile early this year while going through the process of getting a security clearance I discovered I am a victim of Identity Theft. I had to file a police report, as well as an ID Theft report with the FTC. I have been disputing with all 3 credit report agencies with accounts that are on my profile that are not validated or mine, addresses I never lived at, another social security number on my file as well as another name on my file! This is a clear indication of the amount of PII the credit bureaus share among each other and with the other smaller agencies that they get consumer information from. Along with their negligence with protecting consumer PII from data breaches. I have to deal with this for the rest of my life, because now my information is just out there, up for grabs being sold from one person to the next on the black web. Yet XXXX and Equifax want me to PAY THEM to be able to monitor my report. PAY Equifax for having my information stolen from THEIR data breach in order to monitor it. The same company that I was paying for protection and monitoring services who neglected my privacy and protection back in XX/XX/XXXX, I am suppose to continue to pay them for security and protection??!! This makes no sense what so ever and something needs to be done about this. Something needs to be done about these Bureaus and the amount of information they hold and collect on consumers that are easily confiscated by hackers. My information is NOT safe with ANY Bureau. I am constantly disputing with them of invalid information on my reports. THEY DO NOT investigate properly on accounts as they should. I DON'T expect the board members and owners of Equifax and XXXX to get it because why would they? They sit up there taking peoples money, consumer PII gets stolen, and instead of ensuring the protection and security of consumers information that they are responsible for ; they sell their stocks so they don't lose money because of the breach and lie about when the breach happened and then offer 1 year monitoring service because that's the best they can do???!!! I will be contacting my Attorney General and the FTC as well!