Consumer complaint received 2025-03-07 00:00:00
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report — Credit inquiries on your report that you don't recognize
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: UT

Complaint narrative:
I'm a victim of identity theft where my identity such as social security number, name, date of birth, and so on were stolen from some of the recent security breaches. 
Some of the recent security breaches where my identity was compromised were Equifax breach, and XXXX XXXX Data breach. 

On XX/XX/year>, some fraudster used my identity to open a credit line with XXXX XXXX ( XXXX ) retailer, and placed some fraudulent orders. 
During the process XXXX  initiated a hard inquiry into my credit report from Equifax and XXXX ( also owned by Equifax ). 
I did not get any notification for this attempt from neither of them. 

On XX/XX/year>, I got a bill from XXXX which I followed up right away with their customer service. 
Once their customer service realized that the account and order was fraudulent, the account was placed in fraud alert. 
I worked with their customer service to provide notarized FTC 's identity theft report. 
I also filled police report with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX 

While XXXX doing their investigation, I froze my credit report at all 3 credit bureaus, and also enabled fraud alert. 

On XX/XX/year>, I got a letter ( attached ), from XXXX saying : 1. that they have completed their investigation, and 2. they concurred that the account was opened fraudulently, and 3. they have closed this fraudulent account, and 4. They will ask Credit Bureaus to remove all reference for this account. 

While this is a good news, the issue now is, with Equifax, which is one of the largest Credit Reporting Agencies ( CRA ) in the nation.

Equifax refused to remove this fraudulent hard inquiries from my Equifax credit report.

They ( or their automated computer ) stated : " The information you disputed has been received. The results are : INQUIRIES ARE A FACTUAL RECORD OF FILE ACCESS AND WILL REMAIN ON THE EQUIFAX CREDIT FILE TWO YEARS FROM THE REPORTED DATE OF THE INQUIRY. '' I've tried to send Equifax a letter, following the template from IdentityTheft for FCRA Section 605B, along with : - notarized letter, - copy of my ID - Copy of notarized FTC identity theft report - Copy of XXXX XXXX XXXX police report, and they automated computer system still refused to remove this information. 
The letter was sent thru XXXX, and delivered to Equifax on XX/XX/year> Under FCRA ( Fair Credit Reporting Act ) rules : Consumer reporting agencies **must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information. ** " Identity theft cases simply covers that.

Also under FCRA section 605B : ... .a consumer reporting agency **shall block** the reporting of any information in the file of a consumer that the consumer identifies as information that resulted from an alleged identity theft .... 

And under https : XXXX " If youve been a victim of identity theft, you can also get credit reporting companies to **remove fraudulent information** and debts from your credit report, which is called blocking. To do this, you must send the credit reporting companies : " This behavior from Equifax is simply not fair for the victim of identity theft, because they are punishing the victim here. 
While credit report hard inquires will drop off ( expire ) from the credit report after 2 years, but that means that means during that 2 years time period Equifax will show this inaccurate information in my credit report. 
Also during that 2 years, my application for a credit may get denied because of this erroneous credit hard pull.

Credit hard inquires does affect FICO score as mentioned by Equifax themselves at https : XXXX, where it increased your credit risk profile.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief