EquiFax – Was Your Personal Information Exposed from Breach?
There’s a good chance that you are one of the 143 million Americans whose personal data has been compromised from Equifax, one of the nation’s three major credit bureaus.
The topic of this month’s newsletter is a course of action to protect yourself (and credit) from this information breach.
1) Check if your information was compromised.
a) Equifax web site
b) Phone: 1-866-447-7559 (for dedicated data breach call center).
You can also contact Equifax customer care at 1-866-640-2273.
2) Obtain free credit monitoring services
equifaxsecurity2017.com
This Equifax website will provide you a date when you can enroll. Return to the website on that date and click “Enroll.”
Make sure to enroll by November 21, 2017.
3) Check your credit report
Under federal law, you are entitled to obtain a free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each credit reporting company, including Experian, Equifax and Transunion.
You can check your credit report for free at Annualcreditreport.com to ensure that your credit report is in good order.
4) Monitor your credit cards and bank accounts
5) Do you waive any rights by accepting a year of free credit monitoring services?
a) it is important to note that the breach can impact your credit profile for longer than one year.
Therefore, one year of credit monitoring services may help for the short-term, but may not be a long-term solution.
For example, a Social Security Number does not expire. Therefore, you need to protect yourself on an ongoing basis.
You may want to purchase ongoing credit monitoring services so that you can receive automatic updates regarding any changes to your credit report.
b) whenever you sign up for a service (particularly following a data breach), make sure you understand the terms and conditions of the offering.
Initially, consumers who sought to accept the free one year of credit monitoring services from Equifax were reportedly not signing up for a “free” service.
How can this be?
Equifax’s credit monitoring agreement stated that in exchange for accepting the credit monitoring services, a consumer would waive his or her right to sue Equifax subsequently in any class action lawsuit.
After meeting with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office, however, Equifax clarified that consumers can receive the free credit monitoring service and not give up their right to sue Equifax in the future as a result of the data breach.
Information taken from Zack Friedman is the Founder & CEO of Make Lemonade
CNBC Here’s what it costs to freeze your credit after Equifax breach click here
MoneyWatch click here Beware These 3 Scams video detailing action to protect your credit
