Consumer complaint received 2025-01-21 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: NC

Complaint narrative:
I am currently a XXXX  veteran XXXX  my country in XXXX. I became aware of a debt XXXX  XXXX # XXXX for {$12000.00} that is not my debt. I sent in a dispute to Equifax and XXXX and they sent a letter in return saying this account is verified. I asked the company to send me proof of debt and they did not. according to 15 USC 1681B. the credit bureaus are to report accurate information. in this case they did not. this has caused irreparable damages to my military  career and this false negative collection. accounts must be removed asap for shame investigations by Equifax< XXXX and transition. remover the following collections from my credit profile now XXXX acct # XXXX {$3500.00} XXXX  acct # XXXX {$12000.00} XXXX  XXXX {$10000.00} remove this items now so my credit profile can report accurate information according to the fcra. The CFPB found Equifax violated the FCRAs requirements for investigating and processing consumer disputes and assuring maximum possible accuracy of information on its consumer reports. The CFPB also found that Equifax violated the law by using ineffective systems and flawed processes, and excessively deferring to furnishers to address disputes. Specifically, the CFPB found Equifax harmed consumers by : Failing to thoroughly investigate consumer disputes : Equifaxs process for submitting disputes limits the ability of consumers to fully and accurately describe their disputes. In many cases, Equifax also failed to consider relevant information submitted by consumers, sometimes not looking at the information at all. Then, after Equifax forwarded information about a dispute to a furnisher, it did not meaningfully consider whether the furnishers response made sense, sometimes ignoring information it had that contradicted the furnishers response. Finally, the resulting letters Equifax sent to consumers sometimes contained confusing or contradictory statements, such as both this has been verified as accurate and this item has been deleted. Putting previously deleted errors back on credit reports and failing to block identity- theft related information : Equifax did not have systems to detect information that was previously removed and block that information from again appearing on the consumers credit report. In addition, Equifax also had no process to identify situations where a consumer is forced to send another dispute about the same inaccurate information because Equifax failed to correct the information the first time, or because Equifax reported information that had previously been corrected. Equifaxs policies limited consumers ability to dispute inaccurate information being put on their credit report. Finally, Equifax reported credit information that it should have blocked because the information resulted from identity theft. Sharing inaccurate credit scores and data about consumers with lenders : Coding errors in Equifaxs internal software caused the company to miscalculate and share inaccurate credit scores for several XXXX XXXX consumers. The company also reported the same credit accounts multiple times for more than XXXX consumers.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief