Posted on 09/11/2017 7:25:14 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
You may have never used Equifax yourself -- or even heard of it -- but the credit reporting agency could still have a treasure trove of your personal information.
Equifax said Thursday that 143 million people could be affected by a recent data breach in which cybercriminals stole information including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and the numbers of some driver's licenses.
Additionally, credit card numbers for about 209,000 people were exposed, as was "personal identifying information" on roughly 182,000 customers involved in credit report disputes.
Equifax is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rate the financial history of U.S. consumers. It gets its data -- without you even knowing -- from credit card companies, banks, retailers, and lenders.
Equifax will not be contacting everyone who was affected, but will send direct mail notices to those whose credit card numbers or dispute records were accessed.
The company suggests you sign up for credit file monitoring and identity theft protection. It is providing free service for one year through TrustedID Premier -- whether or not you've been affected by the breach.
To enroll, go to www.equifaxsecurity2017.com and click on the Check Potential Impact tab. You must submit your last name and last six digits of your Social Security number there.
At that point you'll receive a message telling you whether you've been impacted by the hack. Then you'll be given a date when you can return to the site and sign up for the monitoring service. The enrollment process is scheduled over several days to minimize delays, the Equifax website says.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
That’s correct, using their site to check if you are affected shields them from liability. Read the terms before clicking
Correction supposedly the clause has been removed https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/09/08/what-to-know-before-you-check-equifaxs-data-breach-website/?utm_term=.bfc707c45359
I read that Equifax also has there own Fraud protection service. So I guess that anyone who has been using that service actually just had fraud committed on them because they were using the service. Glad to find out that am not considered one of the ones that was not affected.
On the site, an update says that you apparently do have legal protection in this instance. The customer agreement was changed to allow that.
Apparently, you get one free year because of this breach with the TrustedID service.
“I heard that if you enroll in their identity theft protection you have to sign away any liability they have for not protecting your information.”
That was all over as soon as it was pointed out. When you go through the online Equifax process, they tell you that by enrolling, you DO NOT waive any rights to legal action.
Bad enough it took them two damned months to inform the public, AND key executives sold their stock before letting that feral cat out of the bag......
They want you to waive your right to join a class action lawsuit in exchange for the credit monitoring service.
I don’t believe for a second that any court would enforce such a waiver. I suspect it’s going disappear in the not too distant future.
0bama$uck$ is really hard to break...but 15 Quintilian year?
For now, at least for me, ignorance is bliss.
Thanks for the info, I’ll go check it out now.
[[The company suggests you sign up for... identity theft protection.]]
Yup- because they did so well the first time protecting people’s identities
[[If someone wants to have their computer try to break one of them, I say go for it. At the rate of 1000 tries per second it would only take roughly 15 Quintilian years for them to break one of them.]]
The password is “Hey Guys”
On top of that, it turns out three Equifax executives sold "almost $2 million worth of the company's shares just days after it learned of a hack that might've exposed the personal details of almost half of the U.S. population."
Looks like it's "under the mattress" time!
Equifax Gets Hacked, Now Says Customers Should Buy Their ID Protection Plan
That “disclaimer” only shields the use of the “Trusted ID Premier” product...Equifax isn’t shielded from liability on the original security breach.
“Weve added an FAQ to our website to confirm that enrolling in the free credit file monitoring and identity theft protection that we are offering as part of this cybersecurity incident does not waive any rights to take legal action. We removed that language from the Terms of Use on the website, www.equifaxsecurity2017.com. The Terms of Use on www.equifax.com do not apply to the TrustedID Premier product being offered to consumers as a result of the cybersecurity incident.”
https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com
“How to find out if you’re affected by the Equifax hack”
that’s easy:
1. If you have ever received a loan of any kind for any reason, including revolving charge accounts.
2. If anyone has ever checked up on your credit card score, even if you didn’t know they were doing it.
So should we sign up or not? I went to the site and didn’t see the little lock symbol at the bottom of the page where they wanted all your info. Makes me nervous to put all that online.
You could always try Lifelock or ProtectMyID — the latter is what I signed up for due to that OMB hack; it was being offered for free by them.
Yeah right give Equifax MORE info. to “check” status!! In any case their “check” site isn’t working too well (you check on a PC web browser and you get one answer and you check on a smart phone and you get a different answer). Might be fixed by Sept. 13th. See: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/equifax-breach-response-turns-dumpster-fire/
and
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/the-equifax-breach-what-you-should-know/
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