Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines • Hacker News Board

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#101

Post by Haul4ss » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 8:17 PM UTC

scrumper wrote: post #92

pkulak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just 90 days? I'd rather freeze my credit. I already bought a house and a car. I'm done with needing credit for the foreseeable future. Freezing all 4 accounts (including Innovis, which actually seems like the most competent of the bunch) is the ticket for me. https://www.experian.com/ncaconline/freeze https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo... https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/land…

Experian link just provides a grey page saying "Loading" Equifax link is dated 2008 and hijacks the back button (wtf) TU is an account creation page I've never heard of Innovis :) Which is not snark at you for posting these links, just a sad commentary on these important pages.

Innovis is usually an intermediary for financial institutions to check all three of your reports. If you've ever seen a hard check on your credit report from CBCINNOVIS, it's them. They're not one of the "big three", they're sort of a 0.5.

The other sites are practically being DDoS'd by people trying to freeze their credit. Glad I did mine before it became a fad. :)

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#102

Post by js2 » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 8:26 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #34

voiper1 wrote: post #5

TL;DR: Equifax phone lines unhelpful for anything. Suggestion, from https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6yv4gb/off... If you do nothing else, place an initial 90 day fraud alert on your file. This is free and will require lenders to contact you if someone (including yourself) tries to apply for credit. Government info. You only have to do this with one bureau in order for the alert to be placed on all t…

Just 90 days? I'd rather freeze my credit. I already bought a house and a car. I'm done with needing credit for the foreseeable future. Freezing all 4 accounts (including Innovis, which actually seems like the most competent of the bunch) is the ticket for me. https://www.experian.com/ncaconline/freeze https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo... https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/land…

For NC residents:

http://www.ncdoj.gov/freefreeze

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#103

Post by samfriedman » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 8:37 PM UTC

bdibs wrote: post #36

rrauenza wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ... what happens if I list myself as Active Duty? They also have a 7 year extended plan. http://www.equifax.com/credit/fraud-alerts/& 3 Main Types of Alerts and Length of Effectiveness: Initial Fraud Alert: 90 days Active Duty Alert: 1 year Extended Fraud Alert: 7 years Extended Fraud Alert Request Form To place an extended fraud alert on your credit file please send to Equifax – via Fax or US Mail - a valid polic…

Active Duty means Active Duty in the military, so I'm assuming they'd require some documentation.

Someone on reddit [0] seems to have signed up for that option accidentally, so it would appear they don't require any documentation.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6zrwdd/soo...

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#104

Post by noddy1 » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC

I think if there was any justice in the USA, a court would declare that the Equifax breach was significant enough that the damage caused is greater than the value of the Equifax company, and the company itself would be taken from existing stockholders and shares distributed among the american public affected by the breach. The company could then continue trading with all proceeds going to the people harmed in the breach, and the employees could then go on to work for the people that they harmed.

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#105

Post by jimktrains2 » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 9:00 PM UTC

sctb wrote: post #81

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg wrote: post #8

Please change the title to something along the lines of "Equifax customer service is ineffective"

Sure thing, we've updated the title to a representative phrase from the article.

I thought there was a pretty hard rule of using the name of the article only, Even when it makes no sense in context. What are the exceptions to that rule?

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#106

Post by e40 » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 9:08 PM UTC

samfriedman wrote: post #103

bdibs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Active Duty means Active Duty in the military, so I'm assuming they'd require some documentation.

Someone on reddit [0] seems to have signed up for that option accidentally, so it would appear they don't require any documentation. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6zrwdd/soo...

I did, too. Didn't ask for anything.

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#107

Post by carapace » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 9:22 PM UTC

nlawalker wrote: post #41

What is the best way for the American public to start to "escalate" this to the government? It's clearly not even worth getting frustrated trying to deal with Equifax directly, they obviously aren't required to have any accountability to anyone.

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Call your Representative.

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#108

Post by mildavw » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

sean2 wrote: post #73

pkulak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just 90 days? I'd rather freeze my credit. I already bought a house and a car. I'm done with needing credit for the foreseeable future. Freezing all 4 accounts (including Innovis, which actually seems like the most competent of the bunch) is the ticket for me. https://www.experian.com/ncaconline/freeze https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo... https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/land…

This is great advice and appears to be a good thing to do, but I just feel weird giving equifax money to protect me from fallout of their data breach. It feels like I'm rewarding them for losing my data. I bet millions of Americans, who are suddenly aware of their vulnerability to credit fraud and learning about these options, are paying for requests and freezes.

Yeah, it bugs me too. What about letting "natural consequences" befall Equifax (or rather its customers)?

I take no action now. Scammer gets a $10k loan from BigBank using my info. I get the bill and report it as fraud. Write a few letters to clear it up (http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-re...). BigBank will be out $10k and is now motivated to figure out a better way to make loans.

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#109

Post by grzm » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #105

sctb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure thing, we've updated the title to a representative phrase from the article.

I thought there was a pretty hard rule of using the name of the article only, Even when it makes no sense in context. What are the exceptions to that rule?

You're right that there's a strong preference to use the original article title. That said, the guidelines go into more detail under "In Submissions":

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In this case I suspect the mods agreed with 'XR0CSWV3h3kZWg that the given title wasn't very good (and not obscure in the intriguing sense, maybe whimsical sense). Personally I find the "I did x. This is what happened"-type quite click-baity. As an aside, I wonder how far one could go using only "this" as a filter for click-bait titles.

Re: Reported difficulties getting help on Equifax's phone lines

#110

Post by CrendKing » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 9:57 PM UTC

voiper1 wrote: post #5

TL;DR: Equifax phone lines unhelpful for anything. Suggestion, from https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6yv4gb/off... If you do nothing else, place an initial 90 day fraud alert on your file. This is free and will require lenders to contact you if someone (including yourself) tries to apply for credit. Government info. You only have to do this with one bureau in order for the alert to be placed on all t…

If I'm a criminal who is going to take advantage of the hacked data, and I know everybody is rushing to do the 90 day fraud alert, I'll wait for 90 days before I take action.

It is better to think from THEIR angle.