I was contacted by a financial institution to verify some information for opening a savings account which is normal for me as I dealt with identity theft about four years ago. He mentioned after the verification that one of my credit cards was showing a much higher limit than what I thought.
I contacted my bank, and they confirmed everything looked normal. Then, I tried to contact Equifax *cue Law and Order theme*
I tried 7 phone numbers throughout this entire situation. I went through countless automated messages (including the one asking for all of your information to get your FREE credit report which after 20 minutes just asks you send in a letter with all that information anyways - just a tiny, tiny slice of the how useless and convoluted their IVR system is), and by the time I finally got through to a real person (48 minutes into this process), where she cheerfully said "yup, I can check!", to only be told, sorry, this line is for the US only, please call the Canada line. So I called the Canada line. Straight up busy signal - no IVR, no phone queue (and I run a call center, so I know how these systems work), clearly out of service or not functional.
Back to the website - try another two phone numbers. Busy signal.
Try the Equifax line for the recent breaches - I get a gentleman who not only can't access any of my personal information (so how are they supposed to check if your information was compromised, exactly?), he couldn't even give me a phone number or transfer me - I imagine he's been getting sh** on all day so I politely said thank you and hung up, but I honestly can't tell you what they're being paid for. Another 5 minutes down the drain.
At this point, over an hour in, I cave and decide to access my credit report online, either to check the information for myself, or get access to this so called "dedicated phone line in the Member Center". I paid my 16.95, verified that the information the original guy gave me was incorrect and there was nothing to worry about.
Then I spend the next 20 minutes trying to find a phone number to cancel the service, as the first two (where "please cancel my service" leads you to), again didn't work, and had a busy signal. I finally find a number that works, and ask to cancel my service, and for a refund. Where I'm politely told that yes, I can have the monthly subscription cancelled, but nope, no process for refunds (which is a load of bullsh**). So when I asked "so, you're telling me that in order to confirm my suspicions that I may have had fraud on my account, or my IDENTITY STOLEN, that even if I had been able to contact someone, anyone, I would have had to pay you, over the phone, for that information". Apparently that is a yes.
So, Equifax, not only is your website useless, your phone lines and IVR system completely chaotic, nonsensical, and a huge waste of time (not to mention ridiculously sensitive, I coughed at one point and got taken back all the way to the beginning of the options), your staff for the breach completely ill equipped to handle customers (and therefore probably hating their lives while being yelled at by people who, shocker, kind of value their personal information and want to talk to someone who can actually help them), but you, at this point in time, to me, seem like straight up thieves. I've had my identity stolen before, and all I wanted was a confirmation that this information was either correct, or not, without having to wait for my "free" credit report in the mail while someone could have been racking up a credit card in my name.
Long story short, I'm out two hours of my life and 17$ for something that I could have called ONE line for, and with proper verification been actually HELPED by your organization, instead of feeling robbed and angry.
I tried to keep this to the point, and respectful of the people working for your company, because I get it, they don't make the rules, they don't run the system, but WOW...your company is just awful.