Consumer complaint received 2024-03-16 00:00:00
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a company's investigation into an existing problem — Their investigation did not fix an error on your report
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
I've reached out to XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX at least XXXX times since this occurred. 

I've historically used an external account ( XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX checking account ) to pay my XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX credit card. However, in recent years, I never use the XXXX XXXX XXXX credit card I hadn't used it in a couple of years before XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX contacted me saying I had 90 days to use it otherwise they would close the account. The external XXXX account used for payments had been compromised XXXX years prior, and I was assigned a new account number with XXXX XXXX XXXX have documentation from XXXX as evidence that the account was disabled due to identity theft. 

However, because I never use my XXXX XXXX  XXXX credit card, I hadn't gone into XXXX XXXX XXXX to update the external account payment method with my new checking account information ( again, I never use this credit card ). 

I made my first purchase with the XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX card in XXXX, and my autopay was supposed to go through in XXXX. I received a notice saying my payment was now late in XXXX, which was confusing ( I hadn't yet discovered the payment issue, and considered it handled ). 

I logged into my account to try to pay the bill, but while I could log into my account, I couldn't get into the Bill Pay section to pay my {$18.00} balance. I thought it was a technica ; bug. 

I waited a day or XXXX, and tried again. I still couldn't get there. I then tried it from my laptop, tablet, from XXXX, from an XXXX XXXX browser. None of these options were working. 

It's now the holidays, and I was out of town. When I returned, I went into the branch, and explained that this situation, and asked why it wouldn't allow me to pay my bill. The payment is going to be late, I explained, and I attempted to give the teller {$20.00} in cash. She said that she couldn't even process the payment in cash in person, and that I would need to return in 48 hours to talk with one of the branch managers.

I sat down with the branch manager, who attempted to make the payment on his end. It didn't work. He called some internal technical team to investigate. After 30 or so minutes, they got back to me and said that the old account number triggered a wave of fraudulent alerts at XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX, and thus the Bill Pay on my account had been disabled. So I'd been banned from paying the bill until that technical resource was able to lift it from my account, and then the payment went through successfully.

I didn't know my account 's bill pay had been suspended, and I don't understand why XXXX XXXX XXXX didn't send me a letter, call me, or otherwise contact me so that it could be resolved. I've asked them to share a statement with the timeline of events, and they have thus far not furnished it for me. 

Because the technical resource team is not connected to the credit reporting team, XXXX XXXX XXXX 's internal investigations have yielded no results explaining that it's XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX 's fault I could not pay the {$18.00} billmy only purchase with them in 3 years that I didn't want to make in the first place. They disabled my ability to pay my bill, and didn't tell me, and wouldn't accept cash.

They are refusing to remove the late paymentthe only one in my entire credit reporting historyfrom my credit reporting. To date, I haven't received an apology or any attempt to resolve my now-tarnished credit score.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation