My Equifax account was hacked, and Equifax doesn't care

Yeah, new SSN is possible but they don't tell you what qualifies you specifically (although they give guidelines) and what doesn't. I have heard it is very random and you really have to present a compelling case to get one, but just depends on how you present it to them.

As for the services, I keep fraud monitoring on from the three credit bureaus now and I have never tried them but I think their product is essentially the same, maybe a few added features here and there but nothing you can't do yourself if just take the time and setup alerts. The only thing that is frustrating to me (but a price you pay for security and piece of mind) is that every time, and I mean every time, someone tries to run my credit I get an alert and if it is me trying to do something (i.e. last year I made changes to my car insurance) I have to authorize the transaction with the credit bureau before it will go through. The more frustrating part is that some companies will just outright deny you and not to you the reason right away so you can't tell them to hold on a second let me fix that and call the bureau to approve the transaction so it goes through.

As for snail mail vs. email. Never tried email. I spoke with a lady at the FTC (they handle FCRA enforcement) and she told me that anytime I needed to get something done or changed to use certified snail mail so I always had a record of exactly when it was sent and when it was received. The credit bureaus have 30 days from the time they receive a letter to correct the issue and/or respond with why they can't. My understanding was that certified snail mail shows them you are serious about enforcing the timelines and makes their antiquated processes actually turn a little faster. :) I honestly never tried email and just went off what that lady told me. After my initial communication with the state attorney's office I had a contact and any mail I would send to the credit bureau I would also send a copy to them as well. I always put at the bottom of my letters that I was copying the state attorney. Mainly I was trying to use it as a scare tactic to get the credit bureaus to act positively and quickly.

I still don't understand why the credit reporting agencies make it so difficult to communicate with them regardless of method. They have so much control over your personal information and how it is used yet they want nothing to do with helping you get things fixed.

Good luck.

I ran into a login error on Transunion, and the password recovery wizard wouldn’t accept my info. When I called, TU reported that my account had also been taken over by a Yahoo! email address that wasn’t my own. Unlike Equifax, however, this time I was able to get the email address.

When I asked Transunion if they could investigate this and/or coordinate with Equifax, they said they don’t have any ability to investigate fraud like this. I found this ironic given that they are supposedly in the business of protecting consumers from fraud. Instead, they recommended I try to contact the police but acknowledged it would be difficult to catch the person.

Any recommendations for how to catch this person?

Its primarily because most people that contact the bureaus ARE full of shit.