This crap is the new norm. Companies compile your data, don’t secure it, and the whole world becomes victims of identity theft. Then they get free credit monitoring from the companies that screwed then.
Use a strong password manager with unique complicated passwords.
Freeze your credit.
Assume someone is trying to impersonate you and open credit cards in your name at all times.
Sad state of affairs today.
Freezing/unfreezing credit needs to be free and easy.
I’ve found it very easy. I just didn’t know to do it until a couple years ago. I think it should be frozen by default.
American banks charge you for this?
Talking about freezing credit checks, not card usage.
Ooooh.
What does that mean?
With your social security number first and last name and some public record information you can apply for credit cards, loans, you name it. For the process to kick off a credit check is performed. The company that is offering to give you the money Will check one or all of the major credit bureaus to get your credit worthiness.
You can write a letter to the three credit bureaus and ask them to lock your credit status so if anyone checks them they will get nothing back. This is a free service as long as you’ve got plenty of time to wait. You can sign up for any one of a dozen different “credit monitoring” services for the rate of about $30 a month they’ll let you turn your credit check on or off at will.
I think the credit bureau should be forced to provide you a portal to authenticate and turn your credit status on and off at will.
Ah, thanks for the explanation.
Over here, when you’re applying for a loan, you’re the one who has to bring the proof of your credit worthiness - typically your employment contract, bank statement etc. - they can’t have it automatically without your consent. Also you have to prove your identity with your ID (either the physical card which is mandatory to have, or I guess nowadays a secured electronic identification if you were to do it remotely somehow). So I was genuinely lost in this comment thread, not knowing what the exact process was in America.
Yeah, we’re heavily leaning toward making borrowing easy to the point that any security breach puts us at risk. It’s trivial with just a little private data to take out a loan or buy a car in someone else’s name. It really sucks.
“it’s not known whether the leak came from within the company or one of its vendors.”
Isn’t it time that big tech companies and their sale of private data get regulated? I see a giant class-action lawsuit in the making here.
It is. The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties—such as banks, phone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and e-mail servers—have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” in that information. Source
