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Equifax Breach Fallout: Your Salary History
- codewritinfool 9y agoWhy are these people still in business?
- craftyguy 9y agoI suspect a variation of 'too big to fail'
- platz 9y agoyou are not the customer
- mikestew 9y ago"Still in business"? Hell, not only that, their stock continues to go up after bouncing off what appears to be the bottom. Which makes me torn, because despite wanting very much to see Equifax and those of their ilk go out of business, I have a bunch of call options I bought when it looked like low 90s was about as low as they were going to go. I still hold those options (though they're set to expire in about two weeks). You see, once EFX bounced off its low, I thought I'd catch a "dead cat bounce" with some call options I'd hold for a week and make a few bucks. It's a proven strategy for me, find a company with a scandal, wait a week for it to blow over, make a quick and small profit when it bounces back up. Then unload, because it won't last. Worked for me with United Airlines as one example. But EFX just keeps going up...and up, and I have no idea why. They were always a horrible, if profitable, company. But the Equifax problem isn't even remotely close to being resolved, and yet at the rate it's going it'll be back to pre-scandal prices before long. (Note that I don't believe it will get back to those prices any time soon, but it's trending that way.) So to answer your question: I don't have a good answer. The almighty market seems to think things aren't all that bad, despite the masses of unpopular sentiment. My best guess is that there are a lot of fingers in that pie (this article being but one example) that don't want to see their source of data disappear. Still can't figure out why that's driving the stock price up, though.
- MrLeap 9y agoI call those BP oil spill trades. Starts with a surprise events that is seemingly catastrophic. If real consequences require special government action -- the consequences will be underwhelming and easily mitigable. If you believe there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, there's no problem profiting off this effect! See: BP oil spill, HSBC money laundering scandal, Wells Fargo fraudulent account scandal, Equifax data leak, United Airlines beating up a passenger... I know I'm forgetting some. I'm pretty sure you could beat the yearly S&P's performance in a single trade for any of those events. Apple having to delay a new iphone release would have a more significant long term effect on that company's stock price than workers at foxxconn facilities killing themselves
- mikestew 9y agoIf you believe there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, there's no problem profiting off this effect! Yeah, I don't know where I stand on it quite yet. I mean, I won't outright buy Exxon shares to hold long-term. Is it hypocritical to make a short-term trade using options? Yeah, probably. But it's not like that money goes straight into Equifax's pockets, it just adds a minuscule amount of liquidity to a market for abstractions of EFX. Meh, I've got bigger ethical fish to fry right now. As aside, to add to your list: the private prison company whose stock went down last year when the Feds said they were going to curtail using private prisons. A few seconds of reading confirmed that it's states that make the most use of private prisons, not the Feds. Made bank on that one, can't say I feel good about it. But I also can't articulate exactly why I shouldn't feel good about it other than, "private prisons, yucky!" I'm pretty sure you could beat the yearly S&P's performance in a single trade for any of those events. Of the three that come to mind that I've personally traded recently, that is most certainly true (the in-the-money EFX calls I have are up about 300%). Problem is, such scandals need to happen more frequently in order to make a trading strategy out of it. About once or twice a year is as frequently as I see such opportunities come up. One could have made a year's SV salary on EFX calls with a $50K investment, but because it's options that $50K could very easily be worth $0 in just a month or two.
- Spooky23 9y agoIt's just a PR exercise to fix. Nobody cares about Equifax. What's going to happen? You have a republican congress that won't regulate them away, the banks need them, and the actual thieves are criminals or nation states who'll get tagged with the actual crimes that get committed later. They will wait until they get their fine, take the media hit, and then rename the company after Trump kicks a kitten or something and overtakes the news cycle.
- takeda 9y agoWe are not their customer, we should pressure government to do something about them both federal and local. It looks like that's the only way, we can't just "vote with our wallet" in this situation.
- burkaman 9y agoAnyone have any idea if Experian and Transunion have something similar?
- binarymax 9y agoProbably: https://www.transunion.com/product/employment-credit-reports https://www.transunion.com/product/employment-credit-reports http://www.experian.com/consumer-information/employment-credit-checks.html http://www.experian.com/consumer-information/employment-cred...
- tyingq 9y agoThere's a similar service called Inverify, and they have a page that looks like it might have similar issues: https://inverify.net/ManageIncomeKey.aspx https://inverify.net/ManageIncomeKey.aspx No idea if they used something smarter than birth date for "Login Code"
- Spooky23 9y agoThere are lots of companies in this space. If the big ones don't, there is a smaller, creepier one or a subsidiary that does. As an example, One firm managed to figure out the correct expected birthdate of our child. The only record of this child are the medical and prescription records of the near fatal miscarriage that my wife was hospitalized for at 9 weeks. If they can get that, one or more somebodies is paying off your company's payroll processor for your salary data.
- typetehcodez 9y agoI hope all the hacked data gets open-sourced. Maybe then we'll have some serious reform. This is ridiculous. What is it going to take to get Congress to actually do something? In the meantime, my strategy is to keep my credit score bad.
- dboreham 9y agoCongress does plenty... ..to allow these corporations to continue to make money at our expense.
- smnrchrds 9y agoIndeed. Though I guess the plans are at least delayed for now, if not abandoned. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/republicans-congress-want-roll-back-regulations-credit-bureaus-n800471 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/republicans-congre...
- cityzen 9y agoConsidering the $7.2 million contract the IRS just awarded Equifax in a no contest bid, I think we're definitely getting close! /s
- toomuchtodo 9y agoIf you have a better way to ensure knowledge based authentication continuity for all online IRS transactions until they switch providers, I'd love to hear it.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago> The service is designed to provide automated employment and income verification for prospective employers, and tens of thousands of companies report employee salary data to it. It sounds like companies can easily use this to collude against employee wages and benefits.
- dawnerd 9y agoMakes this law a moot point https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/04/27/whats-your-salary-becomes-no-no-job-interviews/100933948/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/04/27/whats-your-s...
- kevmo 9y agoYeah, that is pretty crazy. The ball is usually already firmly in the employer's court. This kind of information greatly diminishes the already most-diminished's bargaining power.
- Retric 9y agoPast pay is not directly a significant issue. It's just a question of getting competing offers. The real issue is some people suck at negotiation and past salaries will tell companies that.
- justifier 9y agoIf some people 'suck' at negotiating then that must mean there are others who are 'better' at negotiating If I have a guardian who pays my rent so that i can take 6months to high ball offers to finally find a job that will pay me a high wage does that mean I'm 'better' at negotiating?
- brianwawok 9y agoWhat stops you from taking the first job you find, and then spending 6 months while working looking for better jobs? It hardly is THAT hard to get some competing offers. And if you can't be bothered, I guess you don't really want it anyway?
- ausjke 9y agoIt seems in China people use their cellphone to pay everything these days, credit/debit card are becoming old-fashion and meaningless there. Hope one day we can do it here. For mortgage and car loans you do not need credit card either. So we can just give up credit card totally. We do need a new way to build people's credit scores somehow though.
- MuffinFlavored 9y agoAren't their cell phones just linked to credit cards?
- Cerium 9y agoNo. Credit cards are fairly uncommon in China. Most people link an ATM card and load a balance into their WeChat account.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mbreese 9y agoI'm not sure how this works in China, but credit reporting isn't exclusively about credit cards (but that is probably the most common component). It's about anything that would involve extending credit - mortgages, car loans, personal loans, paying for a cell phone monthly, etc... So, just because credit cards aren't common in China, doesn't mean that there isn't some other equivalent tracking going on... (although, I don't know any specifics).
- takeda 9y agoPP means that in China, and actually majority places, people don't purchase daily needs on credit. Yes people still need credit, and typically a government branch keeps track this kind of information.
- eurticket 9y ago
- jdenning 9y agoIs it legal for employers to provide salary data on particular employees without permission?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- erentz 9y agoI went looking to create an account for employment verification at Equifax about a week ago. It was via different channel that this Krebs one, where you go to the product page and can sign up for a one time check for around $40 IIRC. And it does require you to affirm you have permission from the employee before getting their data. How they verify that is beyond me. I would love to know if there is a way to see what data is held on me, and who has requested it.
- cosmie 9y ago> How they verify that is beyond me. They don't. It's essentially an indemnification clause that they can point to as a copout if their service gets abused and a victim of that abuse comes looking. "They said they had permission. We're just an innocent third party that they lied to. Go take it up with them." more or less
- joegosse 9y agoUnder FCRA, your employer or potential employer must get permission from you before performing any credit report (which includes a salary report). >You must give your consent for reports to be provided to employers. A consumer reporting agency may not give out information about you to your employer, or a potential employer, without your written consent given to the employer. Written consent generally is not required in the trucking industry. For more information, go to www.ftc.gov/credit. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0096-fair-credit-reporting-act.pdf https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0096-fair-credit-r...
- foobarian 9y agoPage 13-14 of the 20 page employment contract you skimmed.
- g051051 9y ago> Sadly, this isn’t anywhere near true because most employers who contribute data to The Work Number — including Fortune 100 firms, government agencies and universities — rely on horribly weak authentication for access to the information. Sounds like the employers were doing it wrong.
- nsxwolf 9y agoI didn't know this existed at all. I thought they just made phone calls to your previous employer and asked. Are we allowed to see what's in it? I mean normally, not just when there's a data breach (and it looks like they shut it all down right now). Because when you get asked this on an interview, what's the "right" answer? There's base pay, bonuses, 401k match, all kinds of stuff. So the "right" answer is up in the cloud somewhere, I can't see it, but I'm being turned down for jobs when my answer doesn't match the mystery number?
- joering2 9y agoHave you ever logged into Credit Karma? I wholehearty recommend it just to see how much information they are pulling, fully automatic up to seven days ago. Its not only my salary month by month, but also all my bank accounts, all credit card account all with amount I owe, amounts and history I paid, everything! Full front-face info, straight from credit reporting bureaus! :|
- erentz 9y agoWhere does Credit Karma show your salary information?
- skinnymuch 9y agoDamn credit karma shows you all that? I don't think I've seen any place where it says how much I've paid for CCs or my bank accounts or my salary (not sure if that's just because it's self-employed/freelance income).
- joering2 9y agoIts funny how people downvote without checking. Yes I can see every month how much I owe and how much I paid back. Month after month history. I sure also see my checking and savings accounts, from every bank (currently 2), with up to date (well, 7 days ago) status on how much money I have there. I don't know what else I can say? Screenshoots - no thank you.
- CommentCard 9y agoIt's offensive that I have to go jump through hoops, set security questions and a secret pin just so I can secure my own salary information. Is it too much to dream that Equifax should be legally obligated to provide, at the bare minimum, a way to easily secure this sensitive information? If I were a hiring manager or in HR this would be a goldmine for verifying candidates' salaries and work histories, and gaining the advantage in any salary negotiation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- huebnerob 9y ago1. I've only ever given my SSN to a company in the same packet of information that contained my signed offer letter, so we'd be far past negotiations at that point. If you're worried about them going back and verifying what you said you made, well, you shouldn't be lying about that anyway. 2. I'd hope that people might hesitate a little bit before committing acts of identity fraud on an institutional scale.
- briffle 9y agoPaychecks don't always correlate to other compensation considerations, such as stock options, extra vacation, higher 401k match, higher health insurance contribution, etc, that are often negotiated.
- CommentCard 9y ago1 - It depends on the company. I've had some companies ask for my SSN when visiting for an on-site interview, and others that don't ask for it until I've signed an offer. 2 - Will it save the company more money than the potential cost of lawsuits? Is it provably fraud? I'd argue that there is value in knowing for certain that an applicant made $x amount of total compensation in salary, benefits and equity. Having a precise dollar amount could let you implement all sorts of ways to optimize the compensation packages you offer for different employees. For instance you could check an applicants past three jobs and get the average compensation % increase between each. You could use this to get a well-modeled idea of the minimum you need to offer them based on past trends in order to hire them. Is this illegal? It should be, but the job market didn't anticipate the Equifax breach. There may not be laws that specifically prohibit this.
- plandis 9y ago> As part of our ongoing commitment to performance, reliability and security, Equifax Workforce Solutions will be servicing The Work Number starting Sunday, October 8, 2017. This will result in temporary service interruptions; if you have received this notice please call our service center at 866-222-5880 to complete your transaction. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Convenient that Equifax is doing "maintenance" on this page after Krebs posted his article...
- tyingq 9y agoThere's an alternate set here, still up and running. https://secure.w2.talx.com/popups/findemployer.aspx https://secure.w2.talx.com/popups/findemployer.aspx https://secure.w2.talx.com/PreAuthenticated/employerEntry.ascx?ReturnUrl=%2ftwneeer%2fPreAuthenticated%2fEnterEmployerSearchCriteria.aspx https://secure.w2.talx.com/PreAuthenticated/employerEntry.as...
- takeda 9y agoIf I can't find my employer, does it mean I'm not affected?
- turc1656 9y agoThanks, but despite the page loading this doesn't seem to be working. I found my employer and even after clicking the radio button for the result, it then tells me that code is not found, which makes no sense, obviously, unless they have disabled it without putting up the maintenance page.
- woobar 9y agoStill works for me. Whenever I search for a company name ti returns a list of employers in this format: XXXXX Company Name I guess the first five digits is the code.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- no_data 9y agoThis won't stop until the people responsible can't afford life insurance anymore.
- takeda 9y agoOk, so I wasn't able to find any of my employers there, and after looking more at the site, isn't that service something similar to companies like ADP who take care of doing payroll that employer voluntarily signs up and provides the information? Because mine initial impression was that this site uses credit information to disclose every person's salary. In that case I guess the main issue here is just that the information is not well protected, especially after recent leak.
- noddy1 9y agocouple of thoughts: 1) If the value of the individual damages related to this breach are in excess of the market cap of the equifax company, all company stock should be seized and distributed equally among those affected by the breach. 2) In the future, if a company controls this amount of sensitive data, they should have mandatory breach insurance. This means that they are covered for a government mandated amount based on the legal liability if all their data was lost. This will mean that the insurers will do in-depth audits of the data security of the company, and they will be incentivized year-to-year to ensure their security practices are top notch. The present system incentivizes each CEO to have a head-in-the-sand approach to data security where a hack is considered a long-tail event unlikely to happen during the ceo's 3-5 year tenure and therefore is not really worth paying attention to. In addition, it would ensure that if the potential damage done if data is leaked far exceeds the value of the business storing the data, the insurance will be prohibitively expensive and the company will not be able to continue with this line of business - as it should be.
- vongesell 9y agoMore and more grateful my nutty "Sovereign Citizen" parents never got me a social security number
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoIn Norway, everyone's salary is published online by the government.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bitxbitxbitcoin 9y agoI didn't consider this at all. Leave it to Krebs to elucidate :).
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