Well, they got many SS#s, birthdates, DL#s, CC#s, and addresses. They said they will inform affected people by mail, or one can provide some sensitive info while enrolling for free one year protection on the website and find out if they were affected.. The website said that after inputting this sensitive info, the page would give you a message letting one know if you were affected by the hack. Guess what--no message was provided. Who knows what no message means. Just another mess.143,000,000 people's info were stolen.:ohmy:
The truly disturbing thing about this the penetration went on for a very long time and the company has at its core mission the management of the most sensitive personal financial information of most of the population.
One cannot "opt out" unless one also opts out of all forms of modern commerce which is impractical for most people.
Yes--unless one is a basically a cash only person. I guess I must have opted in unawares when I got my first CC. It bugs me that their website did not work as they said it would. Maybe it's been hacked , too.:S
I checked some SSNs.
Got two different messages.
One to return to enroll in a few days.
Another that said they do not believe the SSN was affected. But you can still enroll for complimentary monitoring.
Good to know. I got the "return to" message with a date to enroll--thus, given your 2nd message, they must "believe" my SSN was affected. So I "believe" I'd better enroll. I wrongly assumed the website "checker" would just give a yes or no answer rather than a do not believe and return to enroll answers.
Nothing like a little insider trading:
Interesting that Equifax tried to sneak in a forced arbitration clause to prevent themselves from being sued over this. Looks like they got found out and have "clarified" that it won't apply in the case of people subject to the hack. They're also using the breach as a way to sign people up with a credit card hoping they'll not notice the renewal once the first year is over.
If it wasn't for Irma, Equifax could be facing a PR disaster here.
Also interesting that the good ole GOP tried to reverse the CFPB rule that will outlaw forced arbitration clauses from 2018.
Indeed-- one article called the behavior exhibited on their webpage "rich", given that Equifax asked people to sign in with very sensitive info, which made the website appear like something that hackers would create. I just froze my account and will not sign up for their pretty much ineffective protection plan. The one good thing was they did not charge my wife, who is under 65, the $10 that is normally charged to freeze her account. We really need some guards to watch over Equifax, the supposed guardians of our sensitive data, but who will watch over the guards--- certainly not the GOP. Seems that there is a whole lotta incompetence going on nowadays. Ha-- maybe Congress will figure out a way to replace our dumb SS#s with something up to date.