Fraudulent Hard Pulls

[cfin22]

Hello,

As I was sitting here this evening drinking my glass of wine, I received an email credit alert from Experian saying Citi had just done a hard pull on me. It said if this was not you, please call this number - which I did. The woman was not able to help me and transferred me to the Fraud Squad. The next person gets on and I tell him what happened, and the jerk says "So why are you calling?" and I said it was a fraudulent pull and I did not authorize it. I would like it removed. He states that credit card companies can do a hard pull on any person and asked again "So why are you calling?" I tell him again, that the email said "If this was not you, please contact us immediately." The jerk goes "Do you always do everything you are asked to do?" What recourse do I have?

[coldfusion]

Ciiti being Citi :-x

Pull a free copy of your Experian credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com (may as well pull your Equifax and Transunion reports as well) to confirm that Citibank did in fact make inquiries on 1 or more of your reports.

If they did, file an online complaint with the FDIC that they hard pulled your credit report(s), but you had not applied for credit and therefore they had no permissible purpose, and when you contacted them you were transferred to their Fraud Squad who basically told you to take a long walk off a short pier.

Specify that the acceptable remediation is for Citibank to withdraw their inquiries.     That is the standard term defining what you want done, which is for Citi to direct the CRAs to remove them entirely from your credit reports, and withdrawal of an inquiry is a well-defined process that Citibank knows how to do. 

Filing a CFPB complaint is not the correct next step - If you did file a CFPB complaint they will review it and then recommend you file a complaint with the FDIC before closing your case.