Equifax

We often get calls from distraught residents of the Southern District of Middlesex County who have blemishes on their credit report courtesy of Equifax. It seems that this giant credit reporting agency has only one address for the registry of deeds for Middlesex County and that's "Lowell Registry of Deeds, PO Box 918, Lowell, MA 01853-0918." Never mind that we stopped using that or any other PO Box eight years ago, Equifax doesn't seem to acknowledge that there's a registry in Cambridge (we hope Register Brune doesn't learn of this). You see, Equifax will take information about liens and encumbrances from Cambridge, but they will only take discharges of those same liens from Lowell. Since neither the lien nor the property are in the Lowell District, it's impossible for us to produce a recorded discharge. Yet Equifax continues to tell consumers who rightly dispute the continued existance of liens to "Call the Registry in Lowell." While there's not much if anything we can do directly for the consumer caught in this trap, we have decided to write to Equifax and request that they start recognizing the distinction between the two registries. I'll put a copy of the letter on our website so that anyone in this predicament will be able to download it and send it along with an explanation. And if Equifax persists in this reckless behavior, we'll have to take more drastic measures.