Equifax Random Report Review

[jacetx]

Apologies for the ran in advance, just venting out, and wondering if this has happened to anyone before.

Last Sunday, I got a notification from myFICO that my credit monitoring service had been canceled. It seems that they were not able to access my Equifax report so that triggered the cancellation. This seemed odd to me, so I signed up for the Experian 3 Bureau monitoring service and the order failed, the reason, they could not access Equifax either. I tried getting my free annual credit report and I was able to get Experian and Transunion, but not Equifax.

I spent hours on the phone with Equifax in the past two days trying to figure out why my report is not accessible to me or credit monitoring services since I DO NOT have a fraud alert or a freeze. After 12 calls I was connected to the Office of Consumer Affairs. Apparently, once a month they choose a few hundreds of people to do a random review for "security" (ironic right?!) of the credit file. What that means is that your credit is placed on a type of freeze that frontline CSRs are not able to see. The process can take up to two months, in some cases longer, and until then, you, any lender, or credit monitoring system can't access the bureau.

The issue is that I'm in the middle of building a house and my credit will be pulled again in December to start the rate lock. I did not receive any communication about this. I've never heard of this type of review. Is it even legal for them to lock you out? I did file a complaint with the CFPB regardless.

[FinStar]

That's interesting and messed up at the same time. I have not heard of such a security selection process, let alone a reason that supports this 'random' selection.

Sorry to hear about the EQ predicament. It is no surprise that it's the least liked of the CRAs when it comes to instances like this one.

[Anonymous]

That’s crazy and sounds like some kind of audit from unemployment or something lol. 🤣

I’m sorry that’s happening. It’s not something I have ever heard of before.

[Anonymous]

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@jacetx wrote:

Apparently, once a month they choose a few hundreds of people to do a random review for "security" (ironic right?!) of the credit file. What that means is that your credit is placed on a type of freeze that frontline CSRs are not able to see. The process can take up to two months, in some cases longer, and until then, you, any lender, or credit monitoring system can't access the bureau.

I think it's more likely that 'once a month they get hacked and a few hundred people have their credit files frozen'.

( MyEquifax.com Bypasses Credit Freeze PIN )

I hope you can get this fixed long before December!

[jacetx]

Problem fixed! The complaint with the CFPB worked. Last night I received a notification that Equifax was working on it and the report was unlocked today.

[Anonymous]

Aww that’s fantastic to hear!

[Anonymous]

How did you contact their consumer affairs office? 

I too cannot access my equifax report ANYWHERE... equifax, lock and alert, annual credit report, myfico, credit karma or any of the others.

I spent hours on the phone with them getting hung up on or dropped back into a que. Aside being a huge PITA it's also holding up my mortgage, my lenders can't pull it now either. I was able to one day and pulled it again on myfico a few days later and I got an information mismatch error - equifax confirmed all of my information was corrected and has been zero help.

[Anonymous]

Hi There,

Saw you're post on the Equifax issue and I'm desperate at this point.

How did you contact their consumer affairs office? 

I too cannot my equifax report ANYWHERE. equifax, lock and alert, annual credit report, myfico, credit karma or any of the others.

I spent hours on the phone with them getting hung up on or dropped back into a que. Aside being a huge PITA it's also holding up my mortgage, my lenders can't pull it now either. I was able to one day and pulled it again on myfico a few days later and I got an information mismatch error - equifax confirmed all of my information was corrected and has been zero help.

[Aspireto850]

@jermbo_12,

Getting to OCA requires a lobe of your liver, first born child and sacrificing 300 credit points!! LOL

This exact issue has been happening to me all of 2019. First time I spent 6 mos and a dispute with CFPB and nothing worked. Then I too got connected to OCA and an agent took a look and in 2 seconds said the problem was an excessive number of soft inquiries on my report.

Clearly while their monitoring product allows you to get a new report everyday the backend systems/programming doesn’t know how to handle this when someone generates a new report daily so then it’s locks the report. This issue is happening to me as we speak. I’ve been locked out for last 2 weeks and have a mortgage pending. I also am not able to get the Equifax report from myFICO or Experian.

When you call customer service asked to be connected to OCA and there’s a 50% chance you will get there. Basically they have to get in The system and do a maintenance update to fix the issue.

I’ve become a self proclaimed Equifax expert given my 10,000 hours in the phone with them in the last few months.

Good luck

[Anonymous]

@aspireto850

Thanks for your message!

I actually work in legal, risk and compliance governance for a large bank, so I'm very well versed in statutes and implementing regs on this topic. Given my expertise I'm still in a state of desperation!!! 

I spoke to OCA for 2 hours this week until ultimately the rep just hung up on me... I haven't had the energy to get back on the line with them.

OCA wasn't able to remedy, they confirmed that ALL my informaion is correct and they could not figure out how to execute any maintenance update. They also confirmed my file is not being audited or is in any state which should prevent the access. I begged for them to contact their IT support team for an issue on the backend to no avail...

I'm exhausted with them and I feel horribly for anyone going through this, I hate to imagine consumers not versed in credit getting affected by something like this and having no idea what to do! (Well I guess I don't even know what to do) LOL 

What have they told you? Is anyone working on a reset for you?

Would you be willing to connect by phone? (I'm not sure how to send a private message on here but I could send you my phone number)