Consumer complaint received 2017-06-06
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: EQUIFAX, INC. (IL)

In earlyXX/XX/XXXX, my bank, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( the " Bank ' ) began working on a home refinance application that my husband and I had submitted. The bank works with secondary lenders that have a policy not to lend money if an applicant 's credit history shows that any account listed with the 3 credit bureaus is in dispute. On or about XX/XX/XXXX, the Bank contacted me to advise that secondary lenders had submitted credit inquiries on us, but would not lend money for the refinance because my husband & I had disputes pending on several listed long-closed accounts. My husband & I immediately called the 3 credit bureaus to ask that the disputes & related comments be removed from our credit histories. ( We filed these disputes for two reasons : errors concerning a mix-up with our son 's address and our address ; and disputes concerning several 30 day late payments when the U.S. postal service delivered our mail to our son 's address. The disputes ' comments were several years old. We had forgotten about them, altogether. ) The credit bureaus removed the disputes from my husband 's credit history after a few repeated phone calls by him. The 3 bureaus told me that all disputes on my credit history were removed, too. XXXX sent me a statement, dated XX/XX/XXXX, about action taken on the accounts, stating, as to each the account, " Disputed Information Updated. '' On XX/XX/XXXX, we contacted the Bank and advised that the bureaus said that the disputes were removed because that 's what the credit bureaus ' representatives assured us over the phone On XX/XX/XXXX, the Bank emailed me and advised that the secondary lenders had submitted credit inquiries again, but two-three accounts on my history, XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXX, were still showing disputes ' commentary, and the secondary lenders would not lend. So, I called the 3 credit bureaus again and asked that they remove the disputes ' commentary from those accounts. They said that they would. On XX/XX/XXXX, I spoke with the Bank and advised that the 3 credit bureaus had cleared the disputes. XXXX sent me a statement, dated XX/XX/XXXX, stating with respect to the 3 accounts, " [ w ] e have completed the processing of your dispute ( s ) '' with the results stated as " Outcome : Updated - Information on this item has been updated. Please review your report for the details. '' The comments in my attached report stated " [ t ] his item was updated from our processing of your dispute in XX/XX/XXXX. '' I did not receive any documentation/or report from Equifax or XX/XX/XXXX. So, the Bank proceeded with our refinance application and more credit inquiries on our credit history were made by the secondary lenders. On XX/XX/XXXX, the Bank 's representative e-mailed me to advise me that the 3 accounts were still showing disputes comments, and that our credit scores were lowering each time credit inquiries were made by the secondary lenders. My husband and I are extremely frustrated and angry with the 3 credit bureaus. The commentary about disputes on my credit history should have been removed, immediately. Creditors did not place these comments on these old closed accounts - I did. I should be able to easily have them removed and all references thereof, as well. And secondly, our credit history has been negatively impacted ( lowered scores!! ) by all of these repeated inquiries during XX/XX/XXXX & XX/XX/XXXX just when we are about to refinance. We want ALL MENTION of DISPUTES removed from our credit histories, and we want all negative impacts to our credit history from repeated inquiries reversed and rectified, as well.