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Equifax Will Offer Free Credit Locks for Life, New CEO Says (bloomberg.com)
Equifax will debut a new service that will permanently give consumers the ability to lock and unlock their credit for free. From a report: The service will be introduced by Jan. 31, Chief Executive Officer Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday, a day after taking the helm. The company will also extend the sign-up period for TrustedID Premier, the free credit-monitoring service it's offering all U.S. consumers, he said. "The service we are developing will let consumers easily lock and unlock access to their Equifax credit files," Barros wrote. "You will be able to do this at will. It will be reliable, safe and simple. Most significantly, the service will be offered free, for life." Barros was named interim CEO on Tuesday, less than three weeks after Equifax disclosed that hackers accessed sensitive data for 143 million U.S. consumers.
All the details needed are currently available on pastebin for your convinience.
I guess this is an attempt to head off legislation mandating free credit locks and unlocks (among other things). They already offer this for a fee, so I'm wondering why it's going to take them 4 months to lower the price to $0. Sure, it'll take some time to reengineer the site to no longer go through the checkout/charging process, but they could keep that process and lower the price to $1 (or less) within minutes, probably just a database field change. Is it really safe to wait 4 months for it to go free? I have a feeling the people who would lock their credit, will pay the ~$10 to do it now rather than risk keeping it unlocked 4 more months, suggesting this 4 month wait is artificial to make it seem like they're doing something while still profiting from their own incompetence.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I appreciate that the comments I make here might be more relevant to EU readers than US ones, but I think the principles should be universal.
When I trade with any company, those transactions are confidential between myself and that company. If I *choose* to perform that transaction with a debit or credit card in order to make the transaction easier or more convenient, that is my choice.
However, the Data Protection Act and associated EU data protection laws basically prohibit the use of information, which may have been collected for one purpose [i.e. to transact a sale] from being used for another purpose [i.e. to provide credit reference information] without the expressed, written consent of the data subject. The reason that Equifax and Experian and all the other credit-reference agencies "get away" with what they do is simply that the terms and conditions - which we are essentially forced to accept if we want a credit/debit card, mortgage, loan or other financial service - are written to allow the creditor to do exactly that. The creditor writes the terms and conditions that way ostensibly to have the ability to cross-check our credit history and so protect themselves from bad debt and from financial crime. Except, as we know, this is now being completely abused.
Governments turn a blind eye to this practice because their elected officials are on the receiving end of so much lobbying money from the companies that do this, it is easy for the industry to "buy off" potentially opposing votes from all parties until the industry can propose a change to laws and buy the result that they want. Unfortunately, this creates a situation in which the government is acting against the best interests of the majority of people that elected them.
I have no problem with a law being passed that legally requires me to declare all pertinent parts of my credit history if I want a loan or a credit card or a bank account. I have no problem with a law that allows for certain forms of credit history - for example, people being declared bankrupt, or having court judgements against them - being "on the record" and visible to lenders.
Where I *do* have a problem is in the use, sale and profit from my personal information, in a manner that is not compatible with the purpose for which I originally agreed to disclose that information, without my knowledge and/or consent.
That is plainly an unacceptable level of scope creep.
Rather than simply push to see Equifax ditch a few of their senior officers, we need to be pushing to have the entire credit-checking, data-sharing-for-profit industry declared illegal and to have these parasitic outfits shut down permanently. All they do is increase the amount of junk mail that comes through my door offering me new credit cards.
No thanks.
I appreciate that the comments I make here might be more relevant to EU readers than US ones, but I think the principles should be universal.
When I trade with any company, those transactions are confidential between myself and that company. If I *choose* to perform that transaction with a debit or credit card in order to make the transaction easier or more convenient, that is my choice.
However, the Data Protection Act and associated EU data protection laws basically prohibit the use of information, which may have been collected for one purpose [i.e. to transact a sale] from being used for another purpose [i.e. to provide credit reference information] without the expressed, written consent of the data subject.
I don't know every one of the >30 countries of Europe but here in Germany it's already too late by decades. It's not called Equifax but Schufa, but what they do is exactly the same. Schufa was created 1927.
However they are smaller: ~80 million people in Germany and they have datasets for ~66 million people and 5 million businesses. They have 750 employees and have revenues of approx. 150 million euros.
Every form of credit transaction already has this kind of consent here in Europe too, just like have they have it in the US. Have you read your card legalese?
The difference between Europe and the US is: very few things are bought on credit. Europeans don't buy groceries, clothes with credit cards, they use cash. Alternatively they use their EC cards (which grew out of eurocheques: europe wide usable cheques). EC cards draw the money directly from your banking account and is therefore usually not a form of credit: if you don't have enough cash there, the transaction won't get through.
They just gave up enough information to recreate everyone's identity.
If they're going to make it EASY to lock AND UNLOCK your credit... does anyone else see the problem here?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"