A former employee of equifax:

I found this article on Epinions, I thought it was a good read and wanted to post it here:

* Rob *

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A former employee's take on the whole messy business of your credit


Equifax was the parent company of the Credit Bureau Inc. in San Jose, CA. This was my first "real" job. I learned a lot here -mostly how a Southern Company can abuse employees, but this review isn't about that. It is about my experience with this Credit reporting agency.

First, I want to make it perfectly clear that no matter how the employee or consumer is treated, they DO everything in their power to make sure that your Credit History is 100% accurate -once they know about the error.

Getting your history 100% accurate though, is another story. First you have to be able to get the error to someone's attention. In all the time I worked there, a consumer sitting on the phone for 4 hours wasn't the way to do it. (that was after you actually got through, I took over 400 calls/day about problems -but I was the only person for that job, so you can see why getting through would be very difficult) Coming in & waiting all day & still not being seen wasn't the way either. The method that worked the best was writing to the San Jose Mercury News Action Line or Channel 11 News Consumer Reporter. If a letter came in from either source, that consumer complaint went to the head of the pile!

I was once going to marry a man that had the same name as his father. One of the conditions for employment was a spotless credit record, so I had my manager check into his credit history -with his permission, of course. It was a mess. My fiance had all of his father's bad debts in his account! He wasn't old enough to have most of the delinquencies! It took over a month to untangle that mess, going back to all the creditors.

I also learned from working there, that if you have a problem with your credit history -say you & your neighbor had a dispute that went to Small Claims court- & you end up with a judgement, that will stay on your record for 7 years. You are entitled to a Consumer Statement, it is mandatory that it be read every time your credit history is required, but it was my experience that most of the big store chains won't even let the Statement be read. As soon as they hear there's a Consumer Statement to be read before the credit report, they say "thanks, no thanks" & you can only guess as to them giving credit to someone that they didn't even pull up the History on...

On Credit Histories that are way too big (the man who holds the Guinness Book of Records for Credit Cards for example) and those that had constant problems (father/sons same name that gets mixed up frequently) & people who've committed fraud are all kept in a Manual File -as well as employees. These are hand kept records to avoid any troubles/frauds/problems.

I left that place of employment when they complained bitterly about having to give us raises... but minimum wage was the law! Within a month after I left, they laid off 75% of their staff -including the personnel manager! But I learned how to use the system & how important good credit is & how to fight companies that turn you down without a good reason.