It’s only a dead end in terms of his chosen avenue to pursue a remedy. There are other avenues, which has been the whole point - he can either continue beating on the dead horse that isnt going to move, or he can step back and try a different path to a resolution.
Actually, the opposite is true. In an effort to get BoA to move, I asked them to merely say that there should be no second inquiry from BoA on that same date (not even acknowledging that it is there), but if for some reason TU thinks there was a second one, it should be removed. In their formal response to my CFPB complaint, BoA stated
On April 24, 2018, the account was reviewed, and it was confirmed that only one credit inquiry with Transunion was identified to have occurred and was valid.
Back to TU with that, they said they were powerless to remove the second inquiry without specific instruction from BoA using the words delete or remove. This is covered upthread.
You are forgetting that I pursued this multiple times with TransUnion, and filed a CFPB complaint against them. This was all covered above, but again TransUnion states emphatically every time I talked to them, escalated within TU, etc. that …
- That there were two inquiries that day from BoA is a “statement of fact” (their words, used repeatedly)
- There is no procedure to question or dispute an inquiry with a credit bureau
- Consumers have only the right to dispute certain sections of their credit report, and inquiries are not covered under such law
- The only avenue for getting an inquiry removed from a credit report is to have the creditor specifically request that it be removed. This is true no matter what reason, but even if there is evidence of attempted identity theft. All attempts to resolve what the consumer believes is an erroneous inquiry on a credit report must be done through the creditor.
When this thread started, I’d already been on the phone with TransUnion, escalated it within, filed a CFPB complaint, and their position remains exactly the same, as stated in the list above in this post.
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Given this is their exact statement, where does it say that there was no inquiry made in conjunction with another account or by another BofA department?
One last time, BofA investigated this supposed duplicate in terms of your application for a new account, since that is what you guessed it was from. They didn’t investigate a claim that an unknown inquiry from BofA appeared on your credit report, because you did not make that complaint. And the same holds true for TU’s responses.
Did you get this claim in writing? Because you are entitled to dispute any incorrect information on your credit report, and per BofA (if taken at face value) this second inquiry is incorrect information. Refusing to allow incorrect information to be disputed would be a pretty serious regulatory violation.
You cannot dispute an inquiry *with a credit bureau". You can only dispute it to the creditor that made the inquiry.
If you’d like to, go to TransUnion’s website and begin the procedure to dispute an inquiry. It will show you your credit report and ask you to check the checkbox beside the information you believe is in error. There are no checkboxes beside inquiries. Then call them and ask them why there are no check boxes beside inquiries. And thus you will begin the saga of a standoff between TU and BoA just like I did three months ago.
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That doesn’t make it any less of a regulatory violation. By law, they must investigate any piece of information that is disputed as being incorrect. Generally the issue is over permissable purpose, which doesn’t dispute if an inquiry occured. But in this case, the creditor who supposedly made the inquiry is stating that the inquiry never happened. Thus it is incorrect information.
OK, so I filed a formal complaint against them, stating under penalty of civil and criminal penalties, with the federal agency responsible for consumer finance that TU was reporting an inquiry which was not valid. TU responded with canned verbiage about what an inquiry was. The federal agency said, well, looks like that takes care of that, and closed the complaint as resolved.
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That “federal agency” merely forwards complaints to the company, and forwards responses to the complainant. They dont “say” anything about an individual complaint, let alone verify the response for accuracy, let alone compel compliance by the company. You will need to pursue a small claims court case or arbitration claim against them for violating your rights in not investigating your dispute.
But first you need to actually dispute the inquiry as being incorrect information, rather than merely complaining that BofA made a duplicate inquiry. And do it in writing to the provided dispute address, not online nor via another regulatory complaint.
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And as you stated, you got no where with this method. Glitch told you to try a different method (i.e. frame the dispute in another way). You seemingly don’t want to do that.
I believe you that you put in a lot of effort and have been given the run-around. I personally have also been in situations (as I imagine most have) where I’ve tried to resolve issues and been given the run-around by two entities both claiming its the other’s fault (and all I knew for sure was that it wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t pinpoint whose fault it was, just as you can’t). It is one of the most annoying things to deal with. But you tried one method, that didn’t work, now its time to move onto the next.
You also keep saying that TU is telling you that the fact that there are two inquiries is a “statement of fact.” This is a true statement (presumably). You look at your report and you see two inquiries. No need to argue that with them. If you’re saying that there weren’t two inquiries, that’s where you’re getting into trouble. The response to “it’s a ‘statement of fact’” should be “absolutely it is, and one of those inquiries was not authorized.”
With regard to your second through fourth bullet points, did you get that statement in writing from them? If you didn’t, you should try to. I’m not arguing with you that they didn’t say that. I truly do believe you. But you can either accept that response, or you can pursue it.
This is an incorrect statement of the law. The fact that there is no way to dispute the inquiry online is irrelevant. AFAIK, the CRAs have no legal obligation to allow you to file disputes online.
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It sounds like you are trying to be reasonable and not trolling, so I’ll accept that. So I’ll try to be measured in my response.
I don’t know what you mean by framed another way. With whom? TransUnion? I’ve framed it every which way including (as I stated just a couple comments ago) that there is incorrect information that they are reporting. They continue to say, and said so in their complaint response, that I need to talk to BoA about that. The way they explain it is that the law does not give them any leeway to judge whether an inquiry is valid or not. They must report what (they say) BoA did.
I’ve never said that there were not two inquiries made. I’ve only told them (and read to them the written answer to my complaint) that BoA claims they never made a second inquiry. But again, I’ve tried the approach of removing who is right or wrong about whether there were two inquiries made or not by simply achieving agreement that there should be only one on record. You’d think among reasonable people that would be sufficient, but TU says the word “can be deleted” must appear for them to take action, and BoA refuses to say that.
By the time I posted here about this saga, I had concluded that spending further time on this was probably unwarranted. I was primarily sharing a data point that, yes, BoA is a bureaucratic monster. TransUnion … although their complaint response was unsatisfying … was actually the more reasonable of the two.
Sorry, I’m worn out by working this issue with BoA, TU, and CFPB. I’ve given up and don’t plan to take any more action.
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I can’t believe that this is the same thing that happened to me back in September of this year (2020). I’m dealing with this same issue. I did not want to pursue it anymore until I saw this post when I googled this topic. I will pursue it to the fullest extent now because it seems as if this is not an isolated incident.