Are you doing a slow burn over the credit agency Equifax? They let your personal information be compromised (stolen.) I followed Equifax instructions to check if my personal information had been compromised. When the web page links did not work I remained calm; even when I was told I had to wait until September 13 (a 5-day wait assigned by Equifax) to find out if my information was compromised and to be able to sign-up for identity fraud protection free for a year, I did not start a slow burn. Don’t you just Iove the antiseptic word they use for stolen? When I found out that three executives at Equifax waited months to tell us about the STOLEN information while they quietly sold their Equifax stock before the price of the stock drop, my burn started. That dido is called insider trading and I believe it is a crime. Ask Martha Steward about that.
Supposedly I can sign up for free protection, right? What I can do is signup to get an e-mail to sign up for the free protection; I am still waiting for the e-mail. It has been a long time since my information was STOLEN.
I did talk by phone with a nice lady at Equifax who told me about “Locking and/or Freezing” my credit reports. She explained what these were and gave me addresses of other agencies where I could get help.
I am still trying to lock or freeze my credit reports. Why is this so hard to do? I believe a lot of this has to do with congress’s fetish with removing all regulations. If a regulation does no good and hinders one doing business without causing harm to another individual, I am all for removing it. But, I think we are all in for a super lesson where the insane belief that all regulations are bad is about to bite us. Experian, one of the other two major credit agencies, lists all the “HARD HITS” (credit checks) to my account from the past three years. I had multiple hits that I am supposed to have initiated. There is not enough information to tell who initiated the checks or who requested the checks. Fortunately for me, the hits occurred before the data breach. But why isn’t this information available to me?
On the Experian web page, I followed multiple links to allow me to freeze my credit reports. The last of these links said “enter your credit card information for payment.” What payment for how much? It seems Ohio allows credit agency to charge fees to freeze and unfreeze your reports. Not all states allow the credit agency to charge for this service. You can sit back and praise the legislators attacking the newly formed Consumer Protection Agency or Elizabeth Warren for fighting to establish it, but you are about to find out who has your back or where ever else you and I are about to get bitten.
Article Submitted by Jesse Parete, Celina OH. This Article does not necessarily represent the views of the Mercer County Democrats or members.