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Ok, so credit reporting agency collects sensitive personal and financial data on basically every adult American, loses it to a bunch of criminals and now I have
by cletus 9y ago
Ok, so credit reporting agency collects sensitive personal and financial data on basically every adult American, loses it to a bunch of criminals and now I have to deal with the consequences?
I looked into credit freezes yesterday. This is really a total scam. You have to _call_ each of the three agencies and pay a fee ($5 to $10) each time. If you need to unfreeze your report to make a legitimate credit application you have to call each of them twice (once to unfreeze and another to freeze) paying fees every time.
Now if you're a paying member (paying a minimum of $15/month to each agency) you can just lock and unlock your credit file on a mobile app (well, three mobile apps and I'm not sure all three support this). It's amazing how convenient things get once they're already extorting you for "credit protection".
This shouldn't even be legal.
Also, if a fraudster defrauds a financial institution with your personally identifiable details, it should be an issue between the agency and the financial institution as you were not a party to this loan. The reporting agency saying you were should be slander.
Financial institutions should be interested in consumers having an easy ability to lock their credit files as it would decrease the number of fraudulent credit applications.
So why can't I have a mobile app (or three) for free that allows me to easily lock and unlock my file or, better yet, to vet every inquiry and approve it or not?
- SonicSoul 9y agohmm i called the 3 mentioned here today and all were free. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faq... Equifax — 1-800-349-9960 Experian — 1‑888‑397‑3742 TransUnion — 1-888-909-8872
- cbhl 9y agoWhat state do you live in? Credit freeze rules vary from state to state.
- otp124 9y agoIs there a wiki page or government list that describes the rules for each state?
- repple 9y agoHere's one list: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-freeze-data-1276.php http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-free...
- scruple 9y agoI'm wholly ignorant to this but I am very curious. Why would it be like that?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- syshum 9y agoDifferent state laws mandating different things. Federal Law allows a fee, some states have passed laws mandating no fee, or no fee to freeze but a fee to unfreeze, etc
- kcon 9y agoI believe it depends on your state. I'm in California and I had to pay $10 for freezing on Experian and TransUnion, although it was free for Equifax.
- anyfoo 9y agoSame experience here (also CA), and I was able to freeze all of them online. It's mildly interesting how different the experience was across the three. Experian gave me the choice between choosing a PIN and getting a generated one, Equifax just gave me a PIN, and for TransUnion I had to choose the PIN (shorter than for the other reports) myself.
- dcosson 9y agoHow do you freeze them online?
- anyfoo 9y agoCome on, that's really not hard to find out for yourself. But here are the links anyway: https://www.freeze.equifax.com/ https://www.freeze.equifax.com/ https://freeze.transunion.com/ https://freeze.transunion.com/ https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
- mjhoyer 9y agough. even their 10 digit code they provide to unfreeze someone isn't very secure. It's simply todays date plus a 4 digit pin that moves up in the order that someone signs up. For example: 090817xxx1, 090817xxx2. So my wife and I are simply two numbers apart.
- pkulak 9y agoJesus. I think you can provide your own. But yeah, when the user-facing bits are this bad, you know it's nothing but garbage below. I can't believe these companies have so much power.
- kimsk112 9y agohttps://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs#place https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faq... said: "You'll need to supply your name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information. Fees vary based on where you live, but commonly range from $5 to $10." So depending on where you live, you probably have to pay.
- oh_sigh 9y agoI thought all 3 were free to freeze but $10 to unfreeze
- wavefunction 9y ago$10.83 in Texas for Experian f no I'm not paying them anything
- morganvachon 9y agoFuck that, Equifax should offer free freezing for anyone affected by their breach. Charging for it is profiting from their own negligence.
- alxndr 9y agoWould love to hear a lawyer's take on this.
- pkilgore 9y agoWe all got two comments into this thread and decided literally anything is better than trying to deal with all the crazy legal theories and bullst going on in here. I've just been skimming search result for lawyer... You're pretty much the only one actually asking for one...
- SilasX 9y agoSo wait, you only need to provide the very same data that was just breached? So anyone can just freeze anyone else's credit now? Edit: well, you have to pay with a credit card so it's traceable, so not that bad.
- sounds 9y agoExperian has not accepted phone applications for a security freeze for a while now.
- unclebucknasty 9y ago>So why can't I have a mobile app (or three) for free Yes, and I think it's a bigger question of why we have so little control over or access to our own data in the first place? It's a racket that they monetize our data by selling it to others, then charge us again to access and protect it. And, if you've ever had to go through the pain of having something corrected in a timely fashion, then you know it's doubly-maddening. They are purposely opaque and byzantine. Yet, without our data, they'd have no business.
- ChrisLomont 9y ago>Yet, without our data, they'd have no business Yet, without credit rating agencies, you'd get no loans.
- jack_kc 9y agoThis kind of thinking is what allows these companies to get away with this kind of incompetence. Loans were given before credit rating agencies existed. This incident shows how flawed our current system is.
- llsf 9y agoThere is no such agencies in lots of countries (e.g. France) and still people get loans. When I came to US, I had to purposely take extra credits/loans to boost my inexistent credit history. Now I am credit worthy thanks to my artificial debt.
- umanwizard 9y agoI'm not arguing against you, just curious... in France, what prevents people from just applying for loans over and over and never paying them back?
- tpxl 9y agoThere are other means to determine whether someone is eligible for a loan (wages, collateral, family support...).
- dmerrick 9y agoJust chiming in to say that I was able to freeze all three online yesterday. No calls needed!
- otp124 9y agoHow'd you do this without calls? Did it cost?
- pkulak 9y agoI used the handy links here: http://clark.com/personal-finance-credit/credit-freeze-and-thaw-guide/ http://clark.com/personal-finance-credit/credit-freeze-and-t... Of course, Equifax just gave me a 500 AND charged my card anyway, so that was nice. The other two worked fine though. Equifax is a steaming pile of garbage. Edit to mention that I only used burner cards for the payments.
- CoolGuySteve 9y agoCorporate charters can be dissolved by the government at any time. Given Equifax ONLY deals in building detailed profiles of every US adult and managed to lose that information to criminals is grounds for terminating their corporation. At this point, their lack of basic security practices has endangered national security by weakening the banking and credit systems. On top of that, this company is massively unpopular. Their only purpose is to potentially slander Americans en masse. Make a fucking example out of them so the rest of the finance industry takes notice.
- marcoperaza 9y agoThe government can't just dissolve a corporation on a whim. We have due process and the rule of law.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The government can't just dissolve a corporation on a whim. Not on a whim, but for (e.g., in Delaware) “abuse, misuse or nonuse of its corporate powers, privileges or franchises.” (Delaware Code Title 8, § 284.) > We have due process and the rule of law. While rarely used in practice currently (it was more used in the past, and there is a movement to revive the practice), the law provides for charter revocation for corporate misconduct.
- joe_the_user 9y agoThe point is that charter revocation requires both the executive and judicial branch to agree. Moreover, I think I can guarantee that any vague sounding statement like "abuse, misuse or nonuse of its corporate powers, privileges or franchises." has been translated into a series of relatively specific conditions by the courts. You can't just sue someone for being vaguely terrible. Basically, however appalling the unaccountable power of credit bureaus is, it was legal yesterday and it's not the job of either the executive branch or the judicial to decide today that such power isn't legal today. The judicial system especially is oriented towards prevent that kind of thing. Rather, deciding that is the job of (even more dysfunctional) legislative branch. This, of course, doesn't guarantee that executive or judicial branch couldn't "get religion" and try to get end this situation but it would have it own messiness. And there you have it - an American legal/government system very much resembling a well built car driven far too long without an overhaul.
- cheald 9y agoYou don't have to unfreeze the reports to open a new credit application - the credit app gets rejected (on hold), and the credit issuer will ask you for an auth code. You go to the appropriate agency, log in with the credentials you used when you set up the freeze, provide the request code, they respond with an auth code, you relay the auth code to the credit issuer, credit app progresess. It basically just forces an auth flow for a credit application, which is quite sane. You can also do the whole process - enrollment and manual authorization - online. It was quite painless for me to do it a couple of years back.
- joe5150 9y agoThat hasn't been my experience applying for credit with frozen reports. I have to unfreeze them (paying the fee), call the creditor to reattempt to pull the report, then refreeze.
- reboog711 9y agoI was able to freeze my credit through on-line forms using instructions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/identity_theft https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/identity_theft Fees vary by state. I think I paid ~$20 total and not all of them charged me.
- __jal 9y agoOof. I really don't want to give these incompetent losers my credit card number.
- ddoolin 9y agoSeconded. _Really_ do not want to give them my money, as it they've earned it. This is their screw up.
- pkulak 9y agoI use privacy.com for things like this.
- throwaway613834 9y agoCredit card number is the last thing you should be worried about.
- tonyztan 9y agoThey already have your credit card numbers. Banks report the numbers to them.
- zdkl 9y agoI'm amazed these events don't seem to shake the american love for credit cards. Like now you've seen what happens in the extra layers between you and the money, I wish people would go back on the poison pill and maybe switch to debit cards.
- umanwizard 9y ago
- colordrops 9y agoDoes it affect your credit rating to freeze and unfreeze your credit? I wouldn't be surprised if it does. It's insane to me that looking up your credit rating negatively affects it. WTF is that about?
- jaranha 9y agoIt does not affect your credit rating for freezes and unfreezes. And it's a good thing that hard pulls on your credit affect your score, because it's a stop gap for excessively requesting credit. It can also prevent heavy fraud because creditors will often reject potential customers with too many hard pulls.
- aioprisan 9y agoFreezing/unfreezing does nothing to your credit score. Also, looking up your credit score and pulling a report for personal reasons (read: not a credit line application) will NEVER affect your score. It's what they call a soft credit inquiry, which is not shown on your report when creditors pull it, and won't factor in to credit score calculations. https://www.creditkarma.com/article/hard_inquiries_and_soft_inquiries https://www.creditkarma.com/article/hard_inquiries_and_soft_...
- ScottBurson 9y ago> So why can't I have a mobile app (or three) for free that allows me to easily lock and unlock my file or, better yet, to vet every inquiry and approve it or not? Indeed. This is now no longer something that would be nice to have; it's the only way the system can possibly work. If a credit agency can no longer verify your identity by asking you questions about your history -- the criminals now have all that information -- there's going to have to be another way. Sounds like a great YC application! Someone should do it!
- gozur88 9y ago>Ok, so credit reporting agency collects sensitive personal and financial data on basically every adult American, loses it to a bunch of criminals and now I have to deal with the consequences? This is what pisses me off - I never gave them authorization to collect information on me. I have no business relationship with these companies. To me they look a lot like parasites even when they're not giving away my data.
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- kavok 9y agoYou often agree to this when applying for a loan or credit card.
- CaptSpify 9y agoagreeing under coercion shouldn't be considered agreement. yes, I realize that the definition of "coercion" here is complicated and nuanced, but I feel the point stands.
- zdkl 9y agoEU privacy and right-to-access laws aren't looking so bad now are they
- datums 9y agoIf there is a cost it will depend on your state, all 3 were free for me Equifax: https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo... Experian: https://www.experian.com/consumer/cac/InvalidateSession.do?code=FREEZE https://www.experian.com/consumer/cac/InvalidateSession.do?c... TransUnion: https://annualcreditreport.transunion.com/fa/securityFreeze/landing https://annualcreditreport.transunion.com/fa/securityFreeze/...
- hippich 9y agowhich state you are in?
- drewmol 9y agoI posted this on another less popular thread about the topic; Equifax stock was down about 14% overnight from yesterday to this morning but held pretty steady today... "This is not financial advise: I remember a few commentors on HN recently saying they have made large gains by buying stock of companies after the news of cyber security breaches significantly reduced the share value, then waiting for the dust to settle(reaction-news-cycle to complete) and price to return to similar value after a few months." Hopefully this time will be different, but I doubt it.
- incompatible 9y agoIt depends on how well the proposed multi-billion dollar lawsuit goes. It's reasonable that the stock price would include a risk premium.
- trumpownsyou420 9y agoor you can just do crypto and not be a schlub
- dfps 9y agoPBS also reported that if you sign up for this, you give up your right to go after them if something happens - there's some kind of agreement that you have to go thru some process I forget the name of, in which the company usually wins. Also, although they offer 1 free year, the problem here (social insurance number, etc) is a lot longer than that, so you'd be paying a recurring amount, wouldn't you?
- frankacter 9y agoSpecifically indicated on their site: >2). NO WAIVER OF RIGHTS FOR THIS CYBER SECURITY INCIDENT In response to consumer inquiries, we have made it clear that the arbitration clause and class action waiver included in the Equifax and TrustedID Premier terms of use does not apply to this cybersecurity incident.
- notyourwork 9y agoExcept that isn't binding like the agreement it is contained within.
- devillius 9y agoThis is how I feel. https://equifaxbreach2017.com https://equifaxbreach2017.com FYI. That is a satire / parody site and not the real one.
- js2 9y agoFor NC residents, it's free to freeze your credit files: http://www.ncdoj.gov/freefreeze http://www.ncdoj.gov/freefreeze