The Equifax data breach and your retirement

If securing your passwords seems too hard, then freezing your credit or even setting up a fraud alert to protect against the chance of identity theft will definitely give you a headache. If you see anything out of the ordinary on your financial statements or credit reports, no matter how small, you should take action immediately. First of all, rather than spending time trying to find out if your personal data was compromised or not in the Equifax breach, just assume that it was.

RICHARD SMITH: Our goal financially in the next five years or so is to go from about $4 billion of revenue to $8 billion, from a valuation of $20 billion to $40 billion. Keep in mind that a credit freeze won’t prevent a thief from making charges to your existing accounts. Many are reluctant to even visit the Equifax website. These included social security numbers, names, dates of birth, and even the addresses of the affected individuals. Earlier in September, Equifax’s chief information officer and chief security officer resigned, according to The New York Times. You must freeze your credit at each of the three credit firms: Equifax (www.equifax.com), Experian (www.experian.com), and TransUnion (www.transunion.com). You can monitor your credit for free with a service like CreditKarma by selecting to be notified when a new account is opened under “Communications and Monitoring” in the profile settings. He said the service allows customers lock or unlock credit reports online or using an app.

In an effort to point out how pointless it was to create a new website to handle consumer complaints, Nike Sweeting built a clone of Equifax’s incident site, adding the word “security” to the domain name. In 2007, all three agencies started to voluntarily offer freezes to consumers everywhere.

Flood victims, who may be applying for new auto loans and disaster assistance loans, may find credit freezes too expensive and burdensome.

What’s the difference between a fraud alert and credit freeze? This proposal has Democrat backing already, with Republicans in Congress indicating they want to conduct fact-finding hearings before agreeing more regulation of businesses is needed. It’s important that you provide a good phone number where you can be reached so they can contact you.

Chicago is alleging violations of its Consumer Fraud, Unfair Competition or Deceptive Practices Ordinance, under which any “unlawful practice” under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act is subject to fines ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 for each offense and for “each day that a violation continues”. The company will also offer its credit monitoring service for free until January 31st. A current lender can access your report information for the purposes of account maintenance, monitoring credit line increases and account upgrades and enhancements.