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Equifax credit score, Equifax risk score, VantageScore, Equifax Bankruptcy score?
https://www.equifax.com/busine...
br How many of these scores are there?

How can they verify it?

Outsourced payroll(ADP and the like) allows your exact salary to be data brokered.

Through The Work Number® bring security to your employment and income verification process with automated, uniform, and secured information release.

Your personal information is being shared by your creditors/bank with equifax. That is the only way they collect information.

That is not entirely true. If you work for a company that uses TALX services (now rebranded as Equifax Workforce) for HR, tax, or payroll or the Work Number then your HR department is directly feeding your salary information to Equifax.

FWIW, TALX lost control of their database starting in April of 2016.

What you signed up for two weeks ago was to give up your right to sue Equifax and agreed to binding arbitration. That is all. They were not planning to do anything with respect to credit freeze. Even now they want four months of damage control and get as many people to give up the rights as possible.

I didn't sign up for their credit check service on that shady Equifax Security 2017 website. I actually signed up for a credit freeze and I did so with the other two agencies as well. I used the site below. Equifax Security Freeze

If you aren't involved in credit application activities, get a credit freeze at all three agencies now. Then they will not provide information. Make things difficult for any fraudster.

You can lift the freeze when you need to.

Caveat: It costs money, but it's currently free at Equifax (the page is sometimes cratered, however).

Good luck everyone. And kudos to LifeLock's cracker department (JK).

Those apps were very powerful. Wanna bet that the code that works with the apps was the source of the breach? Equifax Places utilizes your GPS location to show you: * Equifax Credit Score : Average credit scores in your area * Fraud Index: The frequency of identity fraud in your area * Credit Rankings: How your credit measures up to others in your area Want more? With an eligible Equifax product, you can also: * Lock and unlock your Equifax credit file* * View alerts to key credit file changes * Check your Credit Score — anywhere, anytime * Get one stop protection if you ever lose your wallet http://www.equifax.com/mobile/

Red the Equifax annual report on their website - it's all about revenue growth (18%), new markets and reducing expenses... Looking at the people, the CIO has a Bachelors degree in Russian and Masters degree in Business Administration. The other "techie", President of Information Solutions, is a Harvard lawyer.
http://www.equifax.com/about-e...
Now it has come out that top management unloaded stock post breach, but before public announcement.
We have a corporation dealing with personal information with zero security core competency at the top, and devoid of moral principal AND willingness to commit crimes for personal gain.
THIS is the exact type of corporation and players that needs to be crushed and go away, like Arthur Anderson, or Daryl McBride.

agreemment to resolve all disputes by binding arbitration. http://www.equifax.com/terms/

While Equifax has appeared to walk away from that statement via a FAQ --- the legal agreement, the one you agree to, still appears to require you to give up your right to sue if you use the service that checks whether or not you were affected by Equifax's security breach.

Probably because they are asking for information typcially found on phishing sites, such as name and (partial) SSN. It's also apparently running a stock WordPress installation and their production site throws debug messages and stack traces. Ugh.

How many commercial companies would have this much customer data at risk?

Well.. I can name at least three: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Actually they all have web forms available:

Experian

Equifax

TransUnion

You can setup alerts with equifax and experian here:
equifax
experian

...Freeze your credit reports.

EQUIFAX Online Help: How to place a security freeze

Experian Online Help: Security Freeze

TransUnion Personal: Security Freeze

Problem solved, and you're not paying $9.95 a month for a service you can easily perform yourself that is far more effective then what any of these supposed "Identity protection" companies offer.

The reporting agencies directly:

http://www.transunion.com/
http://www.equifax.com/home/en_us
http://www.experian.com/

Needless to say I called BS on them because I was never provided with a copy of the agreement and they certainly don't have my signature on anything. Unfortunately, consumers have no legal rights when it comes to a credit report. It's not considered liable because credit reports aren't public information. Anyone have an idea of a legal argument I can make that would force them to tell the credit agencies the bill is invalid?

All you have to do is write the credit bureaus, Experian, Transunion, and Equifax. By law they are required to investigate and if you're right remove anything derogatory. If they can't verify your version they have to include your explanation of it in the report.

I've got to warn you thought that Experian has a bad record of verifying claims. I should also recommend people not to use any of those agencies that say they can clean up your credit, all they will do is dispute any bad claims which is explained above. They will also dispute every single bad claim all at once, and the report agencies frown on that. You should dispute only one or two items at a tyme, with 6 months between disputes filed.

If you're talking about a fraud-alert rather than a freeze (which is only available in some states), be sure to read the fine print.

to wit: Fraud alerts will not necessarily prevent someone else from opening an account in your name. A creditor is not required by law to contact you if you have a fraud alert in place. Fraud alerts can legally be ignored by creditors.

I found this out when I was approved for a loan without having anyone call me for additional information the way I thought they were supposed to.

First off, the term "identity theft" is completely ridiculous. No one is taking away who you are. Your friends and family won't suddenly forget who you are. A better term would be "credit fraud".

This is the basic scenario: A criminal poses as you to borrow money (usually with a credit card), and then whoever lent that person the money asks you to repay it.

Then there are generally 2 consequences for you: debt and reputation damage. The debt itself is usually the lesser of the two problems, since you're not legally obligated to repay money that someone else borrowed in your name. Reputation damage, on the other hand, is incredibly hard to repair. This usually takes the form of erroneous information on your credit report.

Private agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are the majors in the USA) maintain this information of your past financial transactions, and sell it to potential lenders in the form of a credit report. Lenders then use this information to decide how risky it would be to lend you money. These credit reporting agencies err on the side of over-reporting negative information, because a defaulted loan from an under-qualified borrower costs banks and lenders much more than a qualified applicant being turned away. Additional services (like providing reportees an easy way to correct errors) would cost credit reporting agencies much more than their client lenders would be willing to pay for the increased accuracy, so they don't bother implementing them.

The short version is that banks and other lenders knowingly rely on imperfect information about potential borrowers, because it is the most economically sensible thing to do. It's not profitable for them to pay for more accurate information. If they decide not to lend you money, even based on erroneous information, it will likely be very hard to change their minds.

This email contains important information that requires your immediate
attention. Please do not reply to this e-mail; instead please use the
telephone number provided below if you wish to contact us.

You previously placed an order with AT&T for DSL-related equipment
through the http://www.sbcdslstore.com/ Website, at which time you
provided certain information including your name, address, e-mail
address, phone number, credit card number and credit card expiration.
(This information did not include your Social Security Number, Driver's
License Number, date of birth, or other identifying information.) AT&T
has learned that a computer containing the information you provided has
been accessed by an unauthorized person, who may have obtained this
information about you.

In addition, AT&T also believes that some customers who purchased
DSL-related equipment from us through this same website may be receiving
e-mails that appear to be from AT&T, but actually are being generated by
an unauthorized third-party (a practice known as "phishing"). These
e-mails refer to your prior order with AT&T and request that you
provide additional personal information such as your Social Security
Number, date of birth, or another credit card number and expiration date.
Please be advised that these e-mails are not being sent by AT&T and are not
legitimate. Do not respond to these e-mails or otherwise provide any of your
personal information in response or at any Website to which the e-mail may
refer you.
We sincerely regret that a third party was able to gain improper access
to your order information and we are working diligently with law enforcement
and major credit card companies to limit your potential exposure. Although
your 3-digit credit card verification number (from the back of your card)
was not stored, and therefore not accessed, we strongly suggest that you
contact your credit card company directly to report this suspected incident
and to protect the credit card you used to purchase this equipment from any
unauthorized activity.

In addition, we suggest that you contact the fraud departments of any one of
the three major credit-reporting agencies and let them know you may be a
potential victim of identity theft. That agency will notify the other two.
Through that process, a "fraud alert" will automatically be placed in each
of your three credit reports to notify creditors not to issue new credit in
your name without gaining your permission. For your convenience, we have
included contact information for all three credit reporting agencies:

Equifax
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta GA 30374
To report fraud: 1-888-766-0008
Website: http://www.equifax.com/

Experian
P.O. Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013
To Report Fraud: 1-888-397-3742
Website: http://www.experian.com/

TransUnion
Post Office Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834
To Report Fraud: 1-800-680-7289
Website: http://www.transunion.com/

Lastly, to provide further security, AT&T is arranging to provide you the
option of enrolling for one year, at no cost to you, in a credit monitoring
service specifically designed to notify you of changes to your credit report
activity in order to detect fraudulent bank or credit card use. The service
will be provided by one of the major credit reporting agencies. We will
provide specific information on this option as part of a letter you will
receive via U.S. Mail in the next few days.

Again, we regret this unauthorized and unlawful access to your order
information and are working with law enforcement to pursue those who
are responsible. We are also reviewing applicable security procedures
in an effort to prevent an incident like this from recurring. Should yo

Am I the only one who does not like Google collecting surfing habits or using email to decide what ads to send my way.

Yes. You're the only one who has ever had any misgivings over it. I'm so glad you finally said something, because certainly nobody else has ever thought it before.

Seriously - is your tin foil covering your entire body now? Or are you just that much of an egotist?

Will Google one day sell this information to employers?

Not without either violating their privacy policy or significantly changing it. But don't let that get in the way of your paranoia.

Will credit card companies and banks join a data mining company to share collected information?

No that would never happen.

Sorry, I was too lazy to link every single letter to a different data mining company, otherwise I could've included ones that operate predominantly outside of the US (although the big 3 all have non-US operations).

Your concerns on this issue are about 50 years out of date. And, somehow, I doubt that you know that much about the system as a whole either (and yes, I do).

Can people imagine if their bank, ISP, and employer joined forces to paint a complete profile of a person?

A rather large amount of that information, particularly the financial data, is already available. See above. If I pull a report on you from the credit bureaus then I can already tell a great deal about you -- where you live, how badly you are in debt (or if you're not), how much you're paid (roughly), possibly what kind of car you drive.

Can that data, when taken as a whole, be used to predict things like how much a person will cost in health insurance, and that data be used to not hire a person?

Not bloody likely. Even in Right to Work states you'd have a hard time pulling that one off. You might try, but if you were ever found out then you'd lose far, far more in legal bills than you'd ever gain in insurance savings. Not to mention that you'd get your ass sued off for invasion of privacy -- no matter what waivers you had employees (or potential employees) sign.

NO, NO, NO, it's

In Soviet Russia you buy your own information.

Equifax
Transunion
Experian

Unless you consider once a year access acceptable. Your credit report free. But that's only once a year.

Who's information is it anyway?

I *do* read most of my privacy notices, and you have the opportunity to opt-out of most marketing-related information sharing... at least with scrupulous businesses. If there is no opt-out mentioned in the privacy notice (it doesn't have to be obvious or easy), then they adhere to a more strict set of guidelines (supposedly).

From what I've read and gathered, the law forbids sharing information in certain ways without offering an opt-out. You do NOT have a choice about them sharing info in ways necessary to provide you the service you've signed up for.

Of course, this doesn't apply to the government. Buy a house, and it's a matter of public record. You suddenly get loan offers out the wazoo. At least you can reduce credit card offers when you tell the credit agencies to not share your credit-worthiness. Do it here . Scroll to the bottom for opt-out, the rest is good info on your rights.

Trans Union contact information
Equifax contact information
Experian has the same info that I had to google for, it was not in the main "Contact Us" area.

You make a valid point, however.

Oh yeah? Well, my business has computers wondering whether they trust you or not.

I also return very nearly every piece of junk mail with a note to remove me from their mailing list. This is a lot of work, and it takes consistency and stamps (for example, telling companies that I actually *do* business with to stop sending me their fricking catalog). Eventually, it works pretty well. I never get telemarketing calls (just stupid surveys sometimes, or charities), and get very little junk mail.

Whenever anyone calls - even for market research, political or charitable purposes - tell them to add you to their "do not call" list. (This is important - just saying "go away" is meaningless.) Basically, if you work hard you can take some control over your mailbox and your telephone.

Finally, as others have said, be cautious about disclosing your information. Do you need to write a check? If not, try a credit or debit card - nobody ever wants your telephone # etc. for those. Avoid any sort of free offer (online or on paper) where you provide your personal information...likely you'll pay for it in sales calls or other harassments. Just be smart, but start (in the US) with the basics: the FCC's list, the DMA's list, and your credit report. PS: nothing that I've found works at all for spam. About all you can do is try to get spamblockers working, or use disposable email addresses, or pursue other strategies. Blah!

OK, sue these guys

experian
Equifax
Trans Union

It is BULLSHIT that you have to PAY for your own credit report!!

Just move to Canada. We don't have to pay.
I thought those "fraud alert" services I saw ads for on American TV were strange, because I assumed you could just get it yourself for free. But I should have known better, in the "land of opportunity."

• Experian
• Equifax
• Trans Union

I too will question the very advisability of single sign on. There are good reasons I keep multiple banking, credit card and merchant accounts. I specifically * don't want* one single authority to be tracking my every move. I * don't want* all my finacial and personal assets and records piled up in one location.

Well, fortunately for you, there isn't one single authority tracking your every move.

There's four.

Equifax.
Experian.
Trans Union.
IRS.

Oh, and if you live outside the US, trust me, the same info is available. Just change the last one to the appropriate regional authority, and maybe change one or two of the first three names to someone else.

Obviously others disagree but I think that single access is just plain dumb

Well, oddly, the entities listed above disagree. They very much prefer to track you by a single method of access.

And just how secure do you think that is?

The argument is, of course, that there is less risk with a well protected central account, but that account is an all or nothing sort of deal

As it is with the current system. And the current system has essentially no safe guards. Once I have the magic number I can get every other account number you have. And through the wonders of Automated Clearing House and Electronic Funds Transfer I don't need any other information to get every penny out of the accounts. Nifty, huh?

The only thing protecting you from having this happen is that nobody gives a crap about you. Which is pretty much the same thing that will protect you in any future system.

www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcra.htm here's an FTC FAQ on credit reports.
Experian , Transunion and Equifax are the big 3 for reports.

IIRC, it was TRW that changed its name, and it's spelled ExperiAn. The "big three" credit reporting agencies are:

Equifax
Experian
TransUnion

Furthermore, if you've been defrauded, you can probably get a free copy of your credit report, and that can potentially help you clean up a whole other category of problem: inaccurate (but not fraudulent) credit information.

Well, i got in with mozila 0.9 (albeit running under w98) when i enabled javascript and cookies. So i guess (if the story is not totally bogus) that someone reacted very fast and disabled that IE-Hurdle at the entrance (that's a cheap one). I even got into the secure site (https://secure. ...) and for people who couldn't use the certificate to log in there seemed to be a possibility to get a userid and password via mail. I also got to the inlandrevenue-site from there.

From What do I need before I register? section (it's javascript activiated, so I can't post the URL: its off the main site):

What do I need before I can register?

Before you register with the Government Gateway, check the requirements below to make sure you have everything you need:

Hardware

• PC or Macintosh
• A working Internet connection

Software

• PC Users
  • Microsoft Windows (Windows 95 and above or Windows NT 4 and above)
  • Internet browser. Either Microsoft Internet Explorer (v4.01 or later) or Netscape Navigator (v4.08 or later).

    Please note that if you wish to enrol for services that require a digital certificate, you may not be able to use the full range of browsers listed above. For example, Equifax certificates can currently only be used with Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (they do not work on any version of the Netscape browser); ChamberSign certificates can be used with both Nestcape Navigator and Internet Explorer, except they are not currently supported on version 6 of the Netscape browser. Please check your certificate provider's web site for more information about which browsers they support.

  • Your browser must have Javascript and Cookies enabled, and be capable of supporting 128bit SSL.
• Apple Macintosh Users
  • Mac OS version 7.5 or later
  • Internet browser. Either Microsoft Internet Explorer (v5.0 or later) or Netscape Navigator (v4.08 or later). Please note that although you can access the Government Gateway web site with these browsers, ChamberSign and Equifax digital certificates are not supported on the Macintosh. Macintosh users can currently only register for Government services that require a User ID and Password, not services that require a digital certificate (such as the Electronic VAT Return or MAFF IACS Area Aid Application).
  • Your browser must have Javascript and Cookies enabled, and be capable of supporting 128bit SSL.

So basically, this story is only true if you have an Equifax certificate.

I used to work for a small consumer finance agency, where I'd review credit applications, look at credit bureau reports, and did telephone collections. Unless things have changed, and they either have for the case of student loans, these kids dont' know all their rights or options.

"They don't threaten you, but they don't have to. How can you prove you didn't owe $100 bucks five years ago, and can you afford to have your loan held up in the meantime? Not me."

You don't have to prove you didn't owe $100 five years ago, they should prove it. At the very least they need to provide a signed piece of paper (promissary note) saying "I owe you $xxx.xx" If they can't produce this, or some other evidence then you don't owe them anything. But in your case you probably don't have much time for all this fighting. All I can suggest is contact your state banking commission and file a complaint.

If you've ever been turned down for credit, you're entitled to a free credit report. Two credit reporting agencies are Equifax and Experian Contact them, and get a copy of your report. Its kind of tricky to read if you've never seen one, but they include instructions and everyone should check their credit report once a year.

If something doesn't look right on your credit report, challenge it. The lending institution has to respond within a certain amount of time (30-45 days?), or it will be wiped out of your credit report. That is, unless the law about this has changed since I've worked in the collections field.

I am about to begin looking to buy a townhouse, and started doing some research, and all of the books point out that you should check your credit reports for mistakes (obviously). I filed to get copies from the 3 major companies (Trans Union Credit, Experian, and Equifax) and discovered that 2 of the 3 had "minor" mistakes on them. One had an old drivers license number, and another had my last name mispelled AND had that I still owed $30 on a student loan (paid off 2 years ago, but the $30 would not have been due for probably another 5+ years) but it still was a mistake. Even these minor problems could possibly cause problems when applying for a mortgage. Anway, people should check their credit reports from ALL 3 of these major credit report agenceies to verify mistakes. I know that Mass residents are entitled to one free copy/year from each, as well as a few other states, but even if you are not, it is probably worth spending the $8/report on all three of these at least one time, and probably keep up every so often as well.

In reference to CmdrTaco's comment about credit card spam. Credit bureaus publish lists of people who have "good credit". Many credit card companies seem to use that list as their own personal mailing list, which is why some people get so many applications.

If you go to the web page of Equifax (I believe they are the largest national credit bureau) you will find this number: 1-888-567-8688 to call to "Opt-Out". The direct link to the number is on this page.

If you call this number and give them your information, you will be removed from the list of four credit bureaus (which I believe are Experian, Equifax, Novus and Trans Union).

It's a somewhat of an annoying process because it's all automated (at no point do you talk to a real person). Also, they mailed me a form to fill out and send back. But, I don't think I received more than 2 credit card applications in the last 3-4 months, whereas I was getting at least 3-4 a week before.

In reference to CmdrTaco's comment about credit card spam. Credit bureaus publish lists of people who have "good credit". Many credit card companies seem to use that list as their own personal mailing list, which is why some people get so many applications.

If you go to the web page of Equifax (I believe they are the largest national credit bureau) you will find this number: 1-888-567-8688 to call to "Opt-Out". The direct link to the number is on this page.

If you call this number and give them your information, you will be removed from the list of four credit bureaus (which I believe are Experian, Equifax, Novus and Trans Union).

It's a somewhat of an annoying process because it's all automated (at no point do you talk to a real person). Also, they mailed me a form to fill out and send back. But, I don't think I received more than 2 credit card applications in the last 3-4 months, whereas I was getting at least 3-4 a week before.