Personal Finance

Equifax Hacked Jul 29- 143M Americans, Unknown # of Canadians

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jeff1970 wrote: I got a letter today: Social Insurance Number, Name, Address Date of Birth, Phone Number, Email Address; Username, Password (For Equifax)

Ridiculous...
Me too Pensive Face
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So they just sent out the mails on Friday Oct 27th? I thought they announced they sent them out a week earlier
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Crap! Me too! Everything stolen! Social Insurance Number, Name, Address, Date of Birth, Phone Number, Email Address, Username, Password, and Security Questions/Secret Answers. ALL compromised!

They have everything on me! I am certain that every one of us who actually took the time to care about our credit and followed it closely like I did by opening an account with them and buying a periodic credit report and score, have been screwed by these stupid negligent idiots.

If my identify is stolen, I will be suing the crap out of them!

All we get is ONE year of monitoring?????!!
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bewiseman wrote: Crap! Me too! Everything stolen! Social Insurance Number, Name, Address, Date of Birth, Phone Number, Email Address, Username, Password, and Security Questions/Secret Answers. ALL compromised!

They have everything on me! I am certain that every one of us who actually took the time to care about our credit and followed it closely like I did by opening an account with them and buying a periodic credit report and score, have been screwed by these stupid negligent idiots.

If my identify is stolen, I will be suing the crap out of them!

All we get is ONE year of monitoring?????!!
I’m not even accepting the monitoring.
I’ve put my name in the two class actions listed a couple pages back.
They can take their free monitoring and stick it.
They aren’t getting off that easy.
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mkl38s wrote: So they just sent out the mails on Friday Oct 27th? I thought they announced they sent them out a week earlier
To be fair, the number impacted was suppose to be around 100k.
I imagine they did the letters in batches, as each letter is personalized to each individual on how much of their personal data was impacted.
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it's baffled me that different people have different information lost/stolen. Does it mean these came from more one incident of hacks?
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coolintheshade wrote: I’m not even accepting the monitoring.
I’ve put my name in the two class actions listed a couple pages back.
They can take their free monitoring and stick it.
They aren’t getting off that easy.
I was of the impression that one did not preclude the other, at least I thought that that was what I read earlier in this thread. Does accepting the free year of monitoring eliminate the option of legal action? I already have a monthly service with them so it's not as if I am going to be giving them information that they don't already have. They will simply extend my current service, free of charge, for the next year.
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coolintheshade wrote: To be fair, the number impacted was suppose to be around 100k.
I imagine they did the letters in batches, as each letter is personalized to each individual on how much of their personal data was impacted.
That 100K number was reduced to 8K. However, I don't believe that they're telling the truth. There are too many of us affected on RFD for that 8K in about 24 million Canadian adults, probability, to make any sense. 100K or even 1 million, sounds more likely.
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bewiseman wrote: Crap! Me too! Everything stolen! Social Insurance Number, Name, Address, Date of Birth, Phone Number, Email Address, Username, Password, and Security Questions/Secret Answers. ALL compromised!

They have everything on me! I am certain that every one of us who actually took the time to care about our credit and followed it closely like I did by opening an account with them and buying a periodic credit report and score, have been screwed by these stupid negligent idiots.

If my identify is stolen, I will be suing the crap out of them!

All we get is ONE year of monitoring?????!!
But I am sure there are more that 8,000 Canadians that have done this. Tell me, did you or do you have an American credit card (of any sort) that you opened somewhere in the US? If so, when? I had a Kaufmann's card from way back...that's my only link to the USA. (opened maybe in the 90's)
Why can't we all just get along?
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jeff1970 wrote: But I am sure there are more that 8,000 Canadians that have done this. Tell me, did you or do you have an American credit card (of any sort) that you opened somewhere in the US? If so, when? I had a Kaufmann's card from way back...that's my only link to the USA. (opened maybe in the 90's)
No doubt there are more than 8K. However, the fact that I have had my username, password, and security questions stolen, suggests that those of us with online accounts with Equifax, may have had the worst breach. By the way, there were two breaches, as I understand it. Something about the ability to log in with only "admin"/"admin", giving access to everything? Anyhow, I am only speculating and have no real clue what has really happened. None of us do.

I'd like to hear from the RFDer earlier in the thread who only had his name and address taken. Did he/she have an online account with Equifax.

My only connection with the USA is a bank account opened in 2008 (closed during banking crisis), in Athen, GA, with Wachovia ( now part of Wells Fargo), while I was still dating my wife.
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jeff1970 wrote: But I am sure there are more that 8,000 Canadians that have done this. Tell me, did you or do you have an American credit card (of any sort) that you opened somewhere in the US? If so, when? I had a Kaufmann's card from way back...that's my only link to the USA. (opened maybe in the 90's)
I once had a Target US credit card, but i cancelled it once Target came to Canada because it was no good to use here.
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I accepted the 12 month free monitoring because I don't believe that it precludes legal action against them at a later date. I was also given the opportunity to place a fraud alert on my credit report and SIN number. This fraud alert persists for 6 years and required any creditor to call me at the number I specified before granting "me" any new credit.

They changed my username and password. Sort of. Actually, they didn't do it properly and I had to go in to my online profile and change it myself including the one secret question.

The experience with the Fraud lady was horrible. Horrible racket in the background and an extreme accent that I could barely understand. I had to repeat everything I said multiple times.
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Yeah, you'd think with such a serious breach they'd have English (or even French) speaking CSR's, rather than the ones being used out of India (or it sure seems so). I had the same experience as you, had to repeat everything 4 or 5 times. Horrible optics.
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coolintheshade wrote: I once had a Target US credit card, but i cancelled it once Target came to Canada because it was no good to use here.
So it seems that a lot that are affected by this breach at some point had some dealings with US companies dealing with credit of some sort. Though 8,000 would seem like a low number.

I also had a pre-paid AT&T phone, can't remember if I used my SIN on it or not.
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bewiseman wrote: I was also given the opportunity to place a fraud alert on my credit report and SIN number. This fraud alert persists for 6 years and required any creditor to call me at the number I specified before granting "me" any new credit.
I'm supposed to have a fraud alert on mine. Just did an early renewal on the mortgage through the banks mortgage center and not branch. Either a different type of mortgage or contract does not qualify as new credit.
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ROYinTO wrote: I'm supposed to have a fraud alert on mine. Just did an early renewal on the mortgage through the banks mortgage center and not branch. Either a different type of mortgage or contract does not qualify as new credit.
I suspect that that doesn't qualify as new credit. In fact, I bet you didn't even get a hard enquiry on your credit. Do you have a monthly service with Equifax? When you log into your account and look at your credit report there is a section for "special services". You should see the fraud alert there.

I'm actually happy to have this fraud alert, if it works, because it will actually slow down my own credit applications. I have hit my credit so hard over the last three years with so many new accounts that my credit score is really suffering. It's time to just sit for a while and do nothing other than maintain the credit I have.
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Anyone (impacted or not) can call and get fraud alert enabled with free of charge right? According to their statement from their web site. I am contemplating if I should even though I am not impacted (so far, no letter yet)

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