Republican Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Marty Jackley agrees with this Democratic blogger that we need to take some cash out of Equifax’s hide. Catching up with attorneys general from 31 other states, A.G. Jackley says everyone affected by Equifax’s massive data breach should get free credit freezes or monitoring and Equifax should pay for it:
“This breach affects millions of Americans including thousands of South Dakotans. Consumers, who are at absolutely no fault in this situation, should not have to pay anyone especially Equifax to either monitor or to freeze their credit,” said Jackley.
…The attorneys general also said that, although Equifax has agreed to waive credit freeze fees for those who would otherwise be subject to them, the other two credit bureaus, Experian and Transunion, continue to charge fees for security freezes. The attorneys general said that Equifax should be taking steps to reimburse consumers who incur these fees to completely freeze their credit [South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, press release, 2017.09.18].
A.G. Jackley isn’t explicitly advocating any government action or even hinting that he might bring legal action to protect South Dakotans. His Monday press release speaks of making a “request” by letter and having “communications” with Equifax about terms of service (“Equifax was responsive to these concerns,” says A.G. Jackley without elaborating). But at least the Attorney General is offering moral support to the idea that moral responsibility should come before profits. (Hey, Marty! How about going Red and advocating that we just nationalize the credit reporting industry?)
Related: We’re now hearing that the same hackers who grabbed our data were breaching Equifax’s systems back in March, five months before the date Equifax has previously cited as when it detected the intrusions.
It’s our data, the fees they can charge vary by what’s allowed in each state. It should be free to lock and unlock our own credit information, but they want it available to sell.
The Equifax verification page is still questionable. You can type Smith 62xxxx (random) and four times in a row I got the message you’ve been breached. But Reed 62xxxx not so. Something is fishy, this same experience has been written about.
If you don’t need to share your credit, even if you haven’t been breached, the most conservative thing to do is lock your credit at each bureau, including Innovis.
Criminals just want the lowest hanging fruit. If you’ve been breached you’ll be at greater risk forever, so the states really need to make this free.
The stock is down almost 2% after this latest news. It could be the bottom. Don’t let a crisis pass you by. Grab the knife, it’s going back up right now.
According to Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times- Equifax has spent 6 mil lobbying and made over 650 thousand in campaign contributions since 2010- 80% to wingnuts.
Sounds like Equifax and wingnuts want to protect the companies right to force complaints into third party arbitration which bodes well for Equifax since they will get to choose the arbitrator.
Bills are pending in Congress to limit class-action damages for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and to give credit agencies more latitude in profiting from identity theft protection products.
The legislation is part of sweeping efforts by Republican lawmakers to reduce oversight of banks and other financial-services firms, and to cripple or eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has notched a successful track record of holding industry players accountable for unfair and illegal practices.
Read more at https://wonkette.com/623162/republicans-protecting-the-little-guy-and-by-little-guy-we-mean-equifax#eTy0w5t3TgwSP9xq.99
“our data”–funny happy