What is the consensus wisdom on Equifax

Re: What is the consensus wisdom on Equifax

John McGaw

Personally, I would not begin to trust them when they say who is and who isn't compromised. There were widespread reports in the tech world of tests of their 'was I hacked' site and inputting total gibberish still returned 'confirmation'. Assume that you were no matter what they say; they've already proven the level of their competence.

What I did was to freeze my credit reports on all four major reporting agencies (Transunion, Experian, Equifax, and Innovis) which cost a total of $7.50 since only Experian seems to be taking advantage of the situation. Of course I won't stop there -- I've always been cautious and watchful and now I'm keeping an even closer eye on things. I have had a credit card number compromised twice now and it is a real PITA to deal with and can only imagine what would happen in a full-out identity theft.

Re: What is the consensus wisdom on Equifax

Barry Irby

I have said for years that the entire Credit Reporting system is pretty nearly a criminal enterprise. They gather information on ME and get paid for reporting on me to others. They did not ask my permission. They pay me nothing. I am grist in the mill. They feel no obligation to check with me to see if what they sell about me is accurate. How did it get to be my responsibility to keep them straight? Now we learn they had inadequate protections set up on the files and I may have been compromised. Why are they not in jail?

I wish I knew what to do.

Re: What is the consensus wisdom on Equifax

Paul Leuba

While not a definitive solution to identity theft, freezing your credit reports with all four credit bureaus, is the best first step. Then, requesting a PIN from IRS to prevent theft of your tax return is a good next step. Also, watch very carefully your health insurance account to make sure no one is using your insurance for their own health care needs.

It's long overdue for Congress to adopt laws to penalize companies that possess our personal information and are negligent in it's protection from unauthorized access.

Credit mess -- longish

Gary Smyth

Any chance of massive indignation and/or justice was lost in November, 2016 with all three partitions of government in place on a pro-business agenda.

That said, with the Equifax breach (and the similar credit reporting concerns who are all linked to one another) now determined by the Wall Street Journal to be March, 2017 not May, as earlier disclosed, it gave the hackers six months to do what they were able to disrupt about 105,000,000 (rounded off number of American citizens over the age of 18, excluding younger and non-citizens) who secured a credit card or major purchase from the banks and or major card companies.

This ought to be a very big deal but I doubt that beyond the retirements (read keeping their benefits) of some few corporate and computer personnel little will occur. These guys are literally too big to fail. If massive large scale changes take place with credit reporting, banks and large wholesale and retail and real estate will spiral into too many difficulties. That will not help the Federal and state programs for projected growth of the economy.

So in my view, don’t hold your breath. If you get tagged you won’t get relief as the problem with the whole is beyond national diligence. If you do choose to hold your credit reports, do not be surprised to find it difficult to start back up, you will get close scrutiny when you do, and while stopped. nearly impossible to get credit for large purchases – unless you have cash (or gold).

I had two hacks. One was from Amazon where they started low, $27-$23-and $58 in one weekend day. When no signal for purchases for those popped up, then they went for a big screen TV, and a cell phone. Amazon caught on with the larger purchases and I was notified. They stopped my accounts and went looking for the offending addresses. (I, of course, never heard from anyone if it was local or all of my accounts, so EVERYTHING had to be stopped. The first purchases were from Ebay and they never charged me. I did however have to stop and change checking accounts, all credit cards, any outstanding check not cleared, passwords, and any bill, AND monthly checks that were to be paid by date. Any I missed, or never thought of, were listed as either “no account found” or “Non-Sufficient Funds”, and only now, five months later, have the utilities, taxing agencies, and even Social Security cleaned up my data and I'm on track and in good graces. Try not getting tax refunds, pension, and SS checks for 90 days.

Bottom line, do what you can to alert your government officials, but this likely will not much change or get us better personal protection.

I went to Transunion

Dick Coers

I froze my credit on the Transunion website, and they said they would contact all the other companies. Supposed to be for 90 days, no cost.

Re: I went to Transunion

Barry Irby

What I don't understand Is what difference does freezing your account make? Don't the hackers still have your information? It's not like freezing it removes it from the database. Can't they just wait until you unfreeze it or use it in some other nefarious way? Why can't the hackers unfreeze your account once they have all the information? If the credit companies store your info they must also store the info it takes to freeze and unfreeze your account.

Re: I went to Transunion

Larry Barrett

If the hackers want to see what they can do with the data they have, they might pick a random ID (maybe you), go to a store and apply for an account. The store or auto dealer will run a credit check. If the credit report is frozen the store will deny credit. At that point the hackers could do as you say and try to un-freeze your credit report. But it seems more likely that they would just go on to another of the 140 million accounts they have and try someone else. So by freezing your reports you at least have created a (maybe temporary) roadblock.

Re: What is the consensus wisdom on Equifax

TomD

Imagine being in Canada and not even being told up to this ish point whether you are on the list. Though I doubt I am.

The problem at the moment is that the identity of the hackers, and their objectives still seem to be unknown. The both have info most adult americans, and they were tunneling for info on specific targets. So far info hasn't shown up being sold to hackers on the black market. So it is a little hard to know exactly where the threat lies at this point.

If this thing goes live it will take more than cancelling a few cards to make it right.

Re: What is the consensus wisdom on Equifax

Alan in Little Washington (NC)

It doesn't take much imagination to come up with a horrendous conspiracy theory- a rogue state (N. Korea?) designs an army of bots, etc. and uses this info to program the bots to apply (open) new credit accounts and purchase items, etc. etc. Then, when they are ready, or get pissed, they unleash a massive attack on the US credit industry, commerce, banking, and us powerless users. Think that might cause massive problems with our economy and nationwide panic?