UPDATE:
WARNING: If you check whether or not your information has been compromised, you are waiving your right to sue or take part in a class action suit against the company. Then, after they tell you your information has been stolen, they’re trying to get you to sign up for their credit monitoring.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into the company looking into this.
ORIGINAL POST:
Equifax has my information. Equifax was hacked this week and wants their “customers” (everyone) to check to see if their information was stolen from their computer system.
I never gave Equifax my information so as far as I’m concerned it was stolen when it got on the Equifax computer.
And I am not their customer. A customer is someone who voluntarily approaches another person or business and voluntarily does business with them. I have never voluntarily done business with Equifax. Banks have checked my credit because they knew Equifax had my information. Car dealers have checked my credit because they knew Equifax had my information. But I never — except under duress — allowed Equifax to store my information. As far as I’m concerned, the information they have on me in their computer system was stolen information the moment they stored it.
However, if you would like to check your information — I don’t care to, but I expect Equifax to notify me whether the information they stole from me has been stolen from them — Tony Vedda from GLBT Chamber of Commerce said you can check it here. It’s outrageous that this company doesn’t intend to contact each and every one of their “customers” whose information was stolen. They should be spending the extra time fixing it — not me.
And now, to top it off, CNNMoney learned today that three Equifax executives sold $2 million in company stock an hour before the hack was revealed. Insider trading is a federal crime. Why these three executives have not been arrested yet is not clear.
People should consider putting Fraud Alerts on all Equifax, Experian & Transunion which should make a creditor contact you prior to issuing any credit. This I believe is free.
You can also put Freezes on all Credit Agencies and be issued a “Pin” (Don’t lose!) whenever you want to “Thaw” a freeze to allow a credit request to go thru. They charge for these.
Just because Equifax info was stolen, does not mean the thief will not apply for credit that checks other agencies.
Signing up for Equifax’s credit alerts does not include other agencies.
There probably are credit alert products that do check all three.