Equifax Exposes Confidential Client Information In 2024
EQUIFAX SHARES AND RELEASES CONFIDENTIAL CONSUMER CREDIT DATA, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, AND PERSONAL INFORMATION TO DISPUTE PROCESSORS THAT IT DOES NOT PROPERLY SUPERVISE.
Inaccurate credit report disputes outsourced to overseas 3rd party contractors.
We all know that the big three credit reporting agencies (“CRAs”) collect massive amounts of data about each of us including our social security numbers, date of birth, addresses, phone numbers, credit accounts, and where we are employed While there are strict federal regulations that restrict the manner in which these CRAs can release this data to potential creditors and people that request the information, there is no restriction on who they can share it with under the guise of assistance with inaccurate credit report dispute processing. What most consumers don’t know, and Equifax certainly does not want them to know, is that it outsources almost all of its investigation duties to a third-party contractor in India that employees hundreds of workers to process these consumer disputes for Equifax. Equifax openly admits these individuals are not employees of Equifax, and Equifax does not know the basic details of who these people are or how they were hired to review your credit dispute and personal information.
Equifax admits to sharing data with unsupervised and unvetted foreign agencies.
In order to reinvestigate credit disputes, these outsourced processors are provided full access to all of Equifax’s data including a consumer’s credit file and personal identifying information. Of course, the question is: what does Equifax do to vet, supervise, and monitor who are these foreign processors and what specific actions that they take with a consumer credit dispute? Unbelievably, Equifax has admitted under oath in court proceedings, that it does virtually nothing, knows no meaningful details about how the foreign dispute processors are vetted prior to hiring and leaves all of the supervision, vetting, and management of these foreign processors to their foreign employers. How does it make any sense that the Congress has enacted strict regulations to control who and under what circumstances these CRAs can share the information within the United States, but then do nothing about the wholesale release of all its data to unvetted foreign agents?
Both the courts and Congress have not taken action.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act specifically requires Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to conduct reasonable reinvestigations of consumer credit disputes with no provision for outsourcing the reinvestigation to a third party. Despite no statutory authority, all of the CRAs outsource consumer credit disputes and both the courts and Congress have yet to step in and order that the process be halted. If these circumstances do not concern you, it should because if you are the victim of inaccurate credit report information, your dispute will be accessed, and all your private information reviewed by an unregulated, foreign entity under which you have no control how they could use your information. Just know that hundreds of these foreign dispute processors have complete access to all of your personal data and when asked about how they are trained or supervised, Equifax has to admit and acknowledge that it has no idea. Until enough Americans take action by contacting their Congressional representatives and demanding regulations to curb this practice or require far stricter regulations, consumers will be exposed and forced to deal with substandard investigations by poorly trained and supervised processors just so that Equifax and other CRAs can increase their bottom lines and save money having to deal with consumer disputes and inaccurate credit file data by using uncontrolled outsourced labor.
If you do have a legitimate credit reporting issue and need to dispute it with the CRAs, you should retain lawyers that concentrate their focus on these credit reporting entities and know how to navigate this complex and disturbing system.
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If you have an error on your credit report and need legal help getting it corrected contact the Virginia Credit report error lawyers at Blankingship & Christiano, P.C. (571) 307-6419 or fill out our contact form to discuss your case.
