EQUIFAX BREACH SETTLEMENT

[Lee B]

Some of you may have seen in the news recently the announcement of the Equifax Breach Settlement, which has its own website, https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/

The website allows you to check whether your information was exposed and if it was to file a claim. It is important that everyone check because the Equifax site which was set up

back in the fall of 2017 did not work well and was very inaccurate. I have checked my family members so far and I plan to check all of my long established clients.

So far my wife and my information was not exposed. However all 3 of my daughter's and one of my son in law's information was exposed.

At the very least you should send an email to all of your clients urging them to go to this website and check, because if your clients are like mine,

many of them are not as security conscious as they should be !

 

 

[BLACK BART]

Thanks for the tip, cbslee.  I was unaware of this security breach, but just checked and WAS "impacted'.  As far as I knew I always had "good credit"- can't speak for it now though.  I kind of hate to check to see the damage, if any.

You know, I once had a lawyer tell me that if he could land a class action suit, he'd "have it made" and now I know what he meant.  I read the terms in your link and, if I understand it right, the "impactees" get $125 and/or free credit checks, 93 individuals who filed the suit get $2,500 each, and four lawyers get 77 million bucks.  Anybody who thinks that's a tad one-sided is free to run down to Atlanta to a "Fairness Hearing" and object.  But who could possibly complain?

 

 

[JohnH]

[Roberts]

Mine was exposed but my wife's wasn't. I claimed my allotment last Thursday.

 

I highly recommend you put a freeze on your credit reports. It takes a little while and may be an inconvenience if you need to open new credit but it is a really good idea and free. KEEP THE PIN THEY GIVE YOU to unfreeze later. It's highly unlikely your ID will be stolen if your credit accounts are frozen.

 

Capital One Credit Cards was hacked and 100 million people had their information leaked. This is not going away anytime soon. Your data is likely >90% to be available for purchase on the dark webs.

[Terry D EA]

You know, I personally was a victim of identify theft three times in less than two years as a result of this breach. My credit is frozen and I have a 2' thick file of credit reports, documents, police reports an so on to support all of this. I do see you can order a form to file a claim online but am a little gun shy to expose all of this online or trust it to get to the right folks to handle the claim. Personally, the $125.00 is a slap in the face. Offer credit monitoring services from Equifax where the breach occurred?? Equifax is the worst and I mean absolute worse of the three credit reporting agencies to deal with and I would never opt for their credit monitoring services. My credit is frozen. I will suggest that if you have been a victim and placing a 7 year fraud alert will not help. My credit was stolen while the fraud alert was in place. That was done by Comcast who quickly (within a week) rectified things after being threated with a sever law suit for violating fair credit reporting laws. I want to know what the criteria is for the 20K? Take notice that nothing I read indicates if and when the claim will be paid. Don't really know what to do.

[Lee B]

Terry, I can't begin to imagine what you have went through and how time you must have spent  wrestling with this.

Have you reached a point where you have got this situation under control or does stuff keep happening ?

[Terry D EA]

cbslee, the situation is under control. The only way this happened was thru freezing the credit. The best news is that I was not hurt financially and my credit scores were restored. However, I was advised that my SS# has made it to the black market, whatever that may be, by Experian. I have all the monitoring services available. It is still a PITA because I cannot buy anything without un freezing my credit. A lot of services tap your credit for information for identification purposes, I can't use those either. Once I complete the claim form, I wonder if I can claim time spent preparing the claim??? 

[B. Jani]

 

1 hour ago, Terry D said:

because I cannot buy anything without un freezing my credit.

I am confused. When you do "Credit Freeze", the only disadvantage is you cannot open new account or increase credit limit until you unfreeze it

. It has nothing to do with purchasing with your CC if that is what you mean. I have credit freeze on all 3, but i am using all my CC as normal. 

[Lion EA]

It comes into play for a LOT of things. For instance, I still have not gotten back on e-Services, because I would have to unfreeze my report(s) for the time it takes for them to identify me via third-party information. (Well, that and the fact that e-Services says my cell phone is not in my name when AT&T says it is in my name; maybe tied in with the freeze, after all.) There are a lot of places that check credit reports without extending you credit, just for identification purposes. If I really want whatever it is, I ask them which company they use. The guy behind the desk never knows. If it's biz hours and he can ask corporate, I unfreeze that one until approved. Had to do that to add my kid on our cell plan. It's a real pain. One year a tax return was filed with my SSN, so I had to print and stand in line at the PO. Last year I was able to e-file again. You never know when you'll be hit with fallout.

[Terry D EA]

20 hours ago, B. Jani said:

 

I am confused. When you do "Credit Freeze", the only disadvantage is you cannot open new account or increase credit limit until you unfreeze it

. It has nothing to do with purchasing with your CC if that is what you mean. I have credit freeze on all 3, but i am using all my CC as normal. 

I can still use all of my credit cards, existing credit; etc. You are correct, if I wan to buy a new car for example, I have to unfreeze my credit. Sorry for the confusion.

[Lee B]

Also, some insurance companies check your credit, which they might use to calculate a quote for car insurance for example.

[Lion EA]

Subaru checked our credit when we bought a car, even though using separate funds. I asked which company and unfroze that one only for the day. When clients were going to rent a storefront for their bakery, they had to unfreeze for a day; but they were committing to monthly payments for a year, so I can see why the landlord wanted to do a credit check.

[Roberts]

When you unfreeze, you can set it up to automatically re-freeze a few days later.

 

We essentially pay cash for everything so it isn't a major deal. We needed a bridge loan to buy our current home until we sold our last home so I did the unfreeze.

[SaraEA]

We were trying to get gas service at our new address, and the company does a soft credit check with Equifax of all places.  So I unfroze my credit for a few days.  This is the only credit bureau I can't do online (it just doesn't work) so I did it over their automated phone system.  Called back the utility, still frozen; waited a few hours and called again, still frozen.  I had a confirmation number from Equifax but what good could that do me???  I called again today, a few days later, and they got the info they needed so I didn't have to pay a $375 deposit.  I asked the utility to deliver my complain to management that they are still using Equifax, the very reason we froze our credit in the first place.  I had to unfreeze all three credit bureaus when we bought our new home, got insurance and other utilities, and all went smoothly.