Equifax screwed the pooch. Some tips on what to do now.

[Harold Mansfield]

By now you all probably know how bad Equifax screwed up. So what now? Equifax has been horrible at helping, and have even tried to make money from affected Americans. I personally think they are doomed and there will be Congressional investigations.

I watch Twit TV all the time and this episode of Know How has some good tips on things you can do going forward to try and protect yourself, your identity and your credit.

My suggestion is to NOT trust the company that just screwed you with now monitoring your credit and information that they just allowed to be breached. "Fool me once" and all that...

Hope it helps.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWjTsr1jlzI

[TheRichZone]

JOHN McAFEE's POV


https://youtu.be/Ki1ex6TZFYY?t=15m55s

[vangogh]

Thanks Harold. When I first heard about what happened I naturally wanted to see if I was affected, but there was no way I was going to hand over more information to Equifax or sign up for whatever protection they were trying to offer. I haven't watched the video yet, but will once I get a chance.

One of the things that bothers me most about this is that we didn't give Equifax any of this information. How many other companies out there have sensitive information about is and we don't know? It makes you wonder if we have a real chance of staying secure. Any of us can take protections and be careful about who we give information to, but we have no control over the information Credit Karma or Experian or any other company. We have little control over signing up for one thing and having that company then share or sell our information to others.

Unless we're all given more control over what happens to our information, this will happen again and probably sometime within the next year.

[AmandaKess]

This whole situation is maddening. The fact that that dumpster fire of a company is going to be allowed to continue on consequence-free is disgusting.

[Fulcrum]

I once had over 150 SSN's (yes, I said SSN and not Canada's version know as SIN) given to me, without my asking for them, as part of an initial inquiry regarding assets put up for sale by a hedge fund. All I needed was some basic information about what was being offered yet they were to be easily figured out. That hard drive met a mean end (magnets, degaussing field, 20lb sledge hammer, etc) when it failed.

I think the worst thing Equifax did, outside of collating and selling the data to begin with, was demanding that people give up their legal rights in order to even find out if they had their data stolen.