Consumer complaint received 2024-12-16 00:00:00
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report — Account information incorrect
Company: Experian Information Solutions Inc.
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
I am submitting this complaint to the CFPB as I have no remaining alternatives given Experians repeated and willful disregard of its responsibilities under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ( FCRA ) and refusal to respond appropriately to my communication with their consumer service team. It is apparent from Experian 's so-called responses to my prior dispute and more recent information inquiry, that no actual human employee at Experian has ever reviewed my attempts at communicating with Experian about an inaccurate/incomplete account information -- they are simply rubber-stamping ( in an automated fashion and without qualified human review ) the correspondence they receive from consumers.

At issue in this CFPB complaint specifically is the entirely incoherent and obviously automated response to my written request for information about a specific erroneou
s account ( the communication contained in Attachment # 1, which was sent on XX/XX/year> ) that has nothing to do with the actual request for basic information about the specific account in question. With respect to this unsurprisingly fruitless attempt to communicate, which was explicitly NOT A DISPUTE and merely a request for my consumer files information, Experian merely funneled my letter through an automated dispute process regardless and closed the information request with a boilerplate response that has no pertinence to my letter whatsoever. The letter I sent referred to and identified specifically an item that appeared on my most recently provided Experian credit report " account number XXXX '', as sent to me directly by Experian in their response to a prior ( actual ) dispute pertaining to this same specific account. 

The meaningless non-response I am complaining to the CFPB about ( attached for the CFPBs reference as Attachment # 2 ) is also strikingly similar ( in fact nearly identical, word for word ) to their response to my earlier and also fruitless attempt to get Experian to re-investigate inaccurate information on my consumer credit report. At the time of that earlier dispute that I mailed to Experian on XX/XX/year>, Experian responded also with an obviously automated and templatized rebuttal that indicated no reasonable independent investigation of the account ( this response, purely for reference, is included as Attachment # 3 given that it displays the account number in question in the form referenced above ). A brief comparison of the two " responses '' from Experian attached -- again to two completely distinct matters ( one a formal dispute and the other a request for simple account information ) -- shows they are in form and substance nearly identical. This demonstrates Experian made no bona fide effort to look into either matter. These are simply automated non-responses that are meant to optically check the box instead of actually fulfilling Experians regulated responsibilities under the FCRA. 

The FCRA and further interpretive details published by the CFPB make it exceptionally clear that Experian is wantonly ignoring its requirements to investigate or even provide basic information requested with respect to its consumer credit reporting activities. For ease of review of this matter, I will reference below excerpts and interpretations of certain FCRA provisions Experian persists in violating. ( XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX ). 

Section 609 ( a ) of the FCRA generally requires consumer reporting agencies to, upon request, clearly and accurately disclose all information in the consumer 's file at the time of the request. To meet this standard, a file disclosure must be understandable to the average consumer. It must assist a consumer in identifying inaccuracies in their file, exercising their rights to dispute any incomplete or inaccurate information, and knowing when they are being impacted by adverse information in their file. If a consumer reporting agency disclosed nothing to a consumer when it only provided summarized information to a user, the consumer would be unaware of the records upon which the summarized information was based, undermining the consumer 's ability to exercise their right to dispute any incomplete or inaccurate information contained in their file. The statutory right provided by FCRA section 609 ( a ) ( 2 ) enables consumers to understand the true sources of any incomplete or inaccurate information in their file and helps them to address such errors more effectively. 


The overarching problem is Experians repeated and willful refusal to provide me with ANY information about the debt they allege I owe to a third party ( in this case a debt collector or debt buyer called XXXX. XXXX XXXX XXXX ). By doing this, they are preventing me from being able to effectively dispute the incorrect information Experian continues to harmfully report on my consumer credit report account ( a direct violation of the letter and the spirit of the FCRA as cited above ). In effect, this is precisely the sort of anti-consumer behavior the FCRA was signed into law to prevent, yet Experian continues to willfully and arbitrarily disregard their responsibility to provide me with adequate ( or in this case, any at all ) information about the accounts they list in my consumer credit report. 

Lastly, to demonstrate Experians UNIQUELY FLAGRANT disregard of the FCRA as compared to other consumer credit reporting bureaus, both of the two more respectable consumer credit reporting agencies ( XXXX and XXXX ) did in fact independently investigate and remove the incorrect account information in question when prompted. Who know if Experian might do the same if they actually conducted any reasonable review of the communications the receive from consumers, but I hope the CFPB can help compel them to do so.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation