Yeah, they want to charge you a fee for freezing your account, which was exposed by their failure.
And the fix for this bug was published over 2 years ago, but Equifax didn’t get around to installing it.
Same thing with me.
OK, I just went up on the Equifax site and was told that “based on the information given” I was NOT affected by this data breach - yay me, right?
Can I trust that?
Also - is Life Lock a decent thing?
Not really (as of 10 days ago). Check it again. You may get a different result.
.
I managed to get Experian to freeze.
I appear to have successfully frozen my Equifax report, however instead of a confirmation page with the PIN I’ll need to unfreeze it, I got a “We’re sorry. We cannot process your security freeze request online at this time. Please try back later. - Error 500” page, no PIN. So I went back and did it again, and now the next page asks me whether I want to permanently or temporarily unfreeze my report. NEVER GOT A PIN NUMBER.
I checked 10 minutes before I made my post. Can I trust a result I get today?
I really don’t know. All I can tell you is there were a lot of reports last week of people checking themselves and being told one thing, then checking again and being told something else.
Personally, judging by the way the info was exposed and their Keystone Cops-esque response, I’m having difficulties trusting ANYTHING from Equifax.
I gotta believe that there is an army of lawyers salivating at the prospect of a class action law suit with 140 million clients.
I thought about freezing my credit, but then I discovered that they require proof of identity for that. I have absolutely zero inclination to pay any money, or inconvenience myself in any way, to fix their mistake.
If my identity is stolen–and I assume it probably will be at some point–I’ll simply tell the relevant company “Remember that huge Equifax breach? You gambled that you could open a legitimate account without proper safeguards–and you lost.”
I fought the IRS to a standstill regarding money that they erroneously claimed that I owed in taxes. Dealing with a private company will be child’s play in comparison. If they persist after being told that I don’t owe anything, I’ll simply turn them over to the Postal Service for attempted mail fraud.
As a former Identity theft victim (thanks, Anthem!), I’d advise everyone to get a PIN for filing their federal taxes NOW. That’s where the easy money is for these fraudsters. The people who stole our info got away with nearly $10k.
I thought you had to use a PIN now? I use one of the main online federal tax tools and I had to enter the previous years PIN. Isn’t that a requirement now?
If not, I definitely need to set this up. I think I have my credit frozen now (well, equifax is a shit show now so who knows - no confirmation or PIN).
Back in 2014, when it happened to us, the requirement was to enter a PIN OR the prior year’s 's AGI* (Adjusted Gross Income). I think that that is still the case. How did the thieves get our AGI via a health insurance hack? Well, I read that insurance companies were required to collect income from employers as a stipulation of the Affordable Care act, but I have no idea if that’s true. All I do know that our thieves were able to file electronically before us. And they made off with a lot of money, even though an algorithm should have caught that it would have been the first year in 25 years where we got a refund. And the first time in 25 years that we would have filed that early – late January. (My husband thinks people who get refunds are foolish for giving the government a zero percent loan.)
If you’re one of the vast number of Americans who don’t e-file then you don’t have an IRS PIN. So when the bad guys e-file in your stead they get to create one for [del]you[/del] them.
Ah, that makes sense! So, I guess I’m protected from tax refund fraud.
I called. I was told that AZ residents must pay to do a freeze. By the automated message at Experian. I guess I need to do some research.