Well I have to say, I have a growing sense of irritation with Equifax. It has been over a week since they received my second dispute (remember they 'verified' the first time - in only three days), and they haven't even processed it such that it appears in their online status system yet.
You have to wonder what it is they really need, here. They've been provided a copy of the lien withdrawal by the IRS. They have been provided a copy of the lien withdrawal by me. They have been told the actual document number under which the document is
filed with the county clerk, so they can have their
goons agents go and check it out for themselves - I'm not sure what more could possibly be given to them to get this done other than a court order. At this point, it is starting to look more like negligent noncompliance than a more charitable allowance that they just need to be careful - they have proof from
multiple sources, yet the item still appears on my report.
I called the county clerk multiple times as well, and they are likely contributing to the problem because they have the withdrawal categorized in their online system as a release. So, the lien has (from the perspective of their organizational system)
two releases attached to it.
You can't tell the difference unless you actually go in and look at the actual document. I've spoken to their people multiple times about this and their answer is "we don't distinguish between releases and withdrawals for purposes of classification." One guy told me "
anybody can see looking at the document that it is a withdrawal." I've explained why this could be an issue for, say, a less than thorough CRA and / or their
goons agents, and their answer is "we aren't changing our methods just for them." They then go on to argue with me about how it doesn't matter because CRA's never remove reported liens yada yada yada (blatantly wrong)... and you get the gist. So here we have a situation where, unless the CRA actually goes and looks at the document, they will only see the term "release" next to the document number in a web search. NICE! So should some CRA be sorta lazy and not really inclined to actually verify by looking at the filed
document (as opposed to its
search category name) in a search (what are the odds of
that, do you think?)... and simultaneously be
paranoid cautious enough to not trust the actual documentation provided by the consumer and the
lien grantee... and you can see the problem here.
:sigh: This stuff is way too complicated and consumers should not have to go through this garbage.
My next step, should EQ not pony up a removal in the next few days (or at least get around to acknowledging that I've made a dispute), will be to BBB them, and also to complain about them with the CFPB and maybe the FTC.
Way back I railed about this process and how it victimizes consumers. Here we have a case where A ) information that is being reported is blatantly wrong (in violation of FCRA) and B ) The CRA has been provided with relevant dispute information and supporting documentation
twice, yet they can't get their act together enough to remove the offending information. It is appalling, seriously. Most consumers give up, I suspect.
Edited by SomeGuyInCA, 01 March 2012 - 04:26 PM.
