I’m guessing this will continue to happen until, I dunno, some the execs at Experian continually have their accounts compromised in the same way again and again.
It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
221–230 of 347 posts
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#222The fact that we haven't nationalized credit reporting absolutely baffles me. These companies have so much power over our lives, are completely unaccountable, and are so incredibly incompetent.
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say this problem would also be solved if we stopped pretending that a Social Security number was a serious substitute for secure national ID.
There's an easy way to do that: pass a law exempting Social Security Numbers from all identity theft and fraud laws. Make it completely legal and tort-free to lie about social security numbers anytime, anywhere, except when dealing directly with the government (i.e. filing your taxes). That'll stop them being used, and right quick.
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#224This happened to me and I ended up calling them to get them to reset my email. It hinged on me answering security questions correctly. Which btw, some of these were also wrong since my identity thief changed some addresses on my credit report. What a fucking mess
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#225My Experian was hijacked, unfrozen, and used to get a $100k loan from Ford Credit. Took me ages to clean up. Bastards.
The worst part of such an experience is that once you've reported a case of fraud on your credit report, if you at a later date want to open a new bank/credit/whatever account somewhere then you have to jump through ridiculous hoops, or will simply be denied outright because they won't believe that you're who you are since your PII was flagged in the past.
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#226The fact that we haven't nationalized credit reporting absolutely baffles me. These companies have so much power over our lives, are completely unaccountable, and are so incredibly incompetent.
Yes and then people claim the social credit scoring system in china is a dystopian hellscape. I happen to think it’s far less dystopian that privately run financial credit reporting agencies.
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's an easy way to do that: pass a law exempting Social Security Numbers from all identity theft and fraud laws. Make it completely legal and tort-free to lie about social security numbers anytime, anywhere, except when dealing directly with the government (i.e. filing your taxes). That'll stop them being used, and right quick.
problem is: what to use instead? They don't really have an alternative, either
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#228The fact that we haven't nationalized credit reporting absolutely baffles me. These companies have so much power over our lives, are completely unaccountable, and are so incredibly incompetent.
Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#229Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not that expensive. It is a couple pennies per pull (of a credit report/file) for somebody seeking identity proofing to use knowledge based authentication (the usual “where did you live, are these trade lines you?”). It is $1.50-$2.00 per proofing attempt with the government credential using ID.me or stripe identity. The problem is that no one is incentivized to slightly increases costs to reduce fraud because…
ID.me supports hardware 2FA, including Yubikey.
My opinion: we should be able to visit a government office, get our picture and fingerprints matched, and then we can reset our email/password/2fa right there.