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

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

#121

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 12:42 AM UTC

mildavw wrote: post #108

sean2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe that big bank should decide not to get credit reports from Equifax and not to send them data. It would be a way to show that self-regulation works before the government forces their hand.

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

#122

Post by patcheudor » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 1:10 AM UTC

MJR wrote: post #11

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…

Hopefully saving people some time - Equifax is "unable to process" online requests - which they tell you after your submit the form. And Transunion's website for fraud alerts is currently "temporarily unavailable".

At least thanks to this, there's no need to even check and see if their mobile app still works:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/settling-score-taking-down-eq...

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

#123

Post by tony101 » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 1:33 AM UTC

rrauenza wrote: post #50

vlunkr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did say "if nothing else". Implying that you should do more. I got the 90 alert, it takes literally 2 minutes so it's a great first step.

Now we just need a service like letsencrypt and a cron job that just resubmits that form every 60 days.

That would be an interesting idea... Except then the service provider would essentially have a database of names, SSNs, and addresses... I think we all know what could happen next. :(

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

#124

Post by zaroth » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 4:04 AM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #116

josefresco wrote: post #39

This lines up with my experience with TransUnion. Called the day after the news broke, and successfully setup a fraud alert on my account using a automated phone system in 3 minutes and 44 seconds. So thrilled with this easy process, I call my Mom/Dad and instructed them to do the same. About a day later I call again to do the same process for my wife. Got almost to the end (after giving them her SS#), but then somet…

As soon as I heard about this hack (last friday?), the first thing I did was sign up for LifeLock and set up my accounts. LifeLock was being hammered at the time, but I got thru. When I got home, I then put freezes thru "the big three", then after reading a couple of articles, on Sunday I put freezes in with Innovis and ChexSystems. I also ran my credit report using TransUnion (leaving me with two more runs from the…

With responses like this, it's almost like the breach is generating enough business to have been worth it!

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

#125

Post by scrumper » Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 1:55 PM UTC

Haul4ss wrote: post #101

scrumper wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :)

Ah thanks. I haven't ever seen that.

Curious whether there will be a measurable impact on new credit approvals as a result of this apparent mass freezing. Equifax's breach leading to second order effect of retail credit gumming up would piss off Equifax's actual clients in a big way.