After spending countless hours on these forums I felt it necessary to share my recent success. It's a little long, but definitely worth reading if you're fighting with Equifax.
I just got off the phone with the Equifax Office of Consumer Affairs who was investigating my recent disputes. It was escalated to their office because of 2 phone calls I made yesterday (the first being 45 minutes and the second over 2 hours) after they failed to properly investigate my original dispute in January 2013.
On 1/11/13 I drafted a letter to the Equifax dispute department requesting that they perform and investigation and verification of 15 accounts listed on a report that I obtained using the free annual credit report service. I mailed the letter on 1/19/13 via certified return-receipt mail which they received on 1/22/13. This was confirmed by the green card that I received back in the mail, and by tracking the letter via the USPS website.
On 1/31/13 I received a reply from the dispute department stating that they verified two of the fifteen accounts that I originally disputed. Upon receiving this letter I expected to receive an additional letter regarding the remaining accounts. According to my understanding of the FCRA, and the time permitted for an investigation, I waited the remaining days for them to conclude the investigation. To my surprise I never received any additional response from them concerning the remaining 13 accounts in my original letter. Instead, I received an email confirmation of the completed investigation on 2/10/13.
I drafted a second letter on 3/11/13 and again sent it certified return-receipt mail on 3/12/13. In the letter I informed them of the previous letter, the date that they received it, their response letter, and demanded that the remaining accounts be immediately deleted from my file. I included a copy of my original letter, a copy of the proof of delivery on 1/22/13, a copy of their response on 1/31/13, and a printout of the website showing that the investigation was marked as completed. Again, according to the green card, and the USPS website, Equifax received the letter on 3/16/13.
As a paying member of the Equifax Complete™ Premier Plan credit monitoring service I am entitled to unlimited credit report updates. I have taken advantage of this feature, and obtained updated credit reports almost every day for the last month. As of 3/26/13 none of the accounts that I originally disputed had been updated or removed according to the FCRA. It had been 66 days since they received my first letter, and according to their website the current investigation for my second letter is estimated to be completed on 4/18/13.
The problem was that there should have never been a second investigation opened. Equifax tried to pull a fast one and buy extra time to perform the investigation that they failed to do in the first place. I confirmed this by calling the dispute center and recording the phone call (I notified them at the beginning according to Pennsylvania law). During the call she stated that the current investigation was in process and that I had to "wait for the investigation to complete". I argued that she was wrong, and this investigation should never have been started, and that they were violating my rights under the FCRA. She stated that everything they were doing was completely legal, and insisted that I wait. After 45 minutes of this I ended the call.
At 4:55pm EST I called back (the dispute center closes at 5:00pm EST) and spoke with another representative. Again I recorded the call. In the beginning I gave them the original confirmation number for the January dispute. After 35 minutes of back and forth with the same kind of stuff as the previous call, she put me on hold to research something. When she finally came back the conversation then took a slight shift for the better.
She claimed that the way I disputed the accounts was wrong since I only put the reported account number and not the company name. I asked for clarification, and she told me that there was no way they could investigate accounts without the company name. I argued that since I got the account numbers directly from my Equifax credit report there should be no reason why they wouldn't know the information. In both letters I copy/pasted the exact account number directly from my report. The problem was that due to privacy laws they have to omit the last 4 digits of the account number and replace them with X's (i.e. 15926xxxx). She focused on one particular account number that was 6xxxx claiming that there was no way that they could know what that account was. This made absolutely no sense since there was no way for me to know what the full account number was.
However, my argument back to her was that the 1/31/13 letter supposedly verified 2 accounts that I had listed in the exact same way with the X's at the end. If that was the case, then how could they possibly verify the account if they are (by her own admission) unable to know what the account was? After stumbling around for quite a few minutes she finally transferred me to a supervisor. The supervisor rode along the same road, claiming that incorrectly disputed the accounts. She went as far as inferring to me that the FCRA requires that I give the account number and company name when I file a dispute. Having a copy of the FCRA in from of me, I asked her to cite the specific section that details the requirements of a dispute letter. She floundered for a while, and ultimately transferred me to the Office of Consumer Affairs.
By this time I was on the phone for 1 hour and 50 minutes. I spoke with a lady who miraculously was in the Atlanta, GA office. I ran through the entire story again, and this time she responded with understanding, stating that she was going to research my case and get back to me. It was 7:00pm EST now, and I asked when I should expect a return call. She said it wouldn't be tonight, but should hopefully be sometime tomorrow. I thank her, and finally hung up the phone.
At 10:43am EST on 3/27/2013 I received a voicemail from the Office of Consumer Affairs asking me to return the call. I immediately logged into my Equifax account and refreshed my credit file. To my amazement every collection account, charge-off, and even a judgment that I included in my dispute letter was deleted from my file. Additionally, they updated 4 of the accounts that had 30-day lates to "Pay as agreed" across the board. Only 1 account that I disputed had not yet been deleted, but that was about to change.
I called the number that they left, and spoke with a representative. She indicated that she had received an email this morning about my case, and that she had already updated my file. I told her about the one remaining account, and she actually went in while I was on the phone and deleted it, providing me with a new confirmation number. I thank her for her prompt response, and hung up the phone.
I can't update my report for 24 hours to see the change in my score or the last account removed, but I can't wait to print it out and add it to my "Credit Repair 2013" folder. I'll update this post once I can refresh my report and see that changes.
I hope my story is an inspiration to someone out there, because it proves that perseverance pays off in the end.
