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You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. A fundamental lesson from the unprecedented is one that’s already very familiar to consumers affected by earlier scandals at Wells Fargo: You’re on your own. You need to be proactive and act as your own defense, not wait for a giant company to take care of you and do the right thing. The offered by Equifax — which reported that a massive data breach left the personal data of nearly half of all Americans at risk — is wimpy. It . You’ve got to do stuff and speak up the way bank customers did after a series of bombshells from Wells Fargo, including that millions of consumers were saddled with bogus accounts. Wells Fargo lessons
Equifax made its revelation that 143 million Americans had been left vulnerable to identity theft almost 12 months after Wells Fargo admitted to fabricating nearly 2 million accounts in an effort to boost its bottom line. The banking giant, which now says there may have been as many as 3.5 million phony-baloney accounts, agreed to pay and settle a class action for $142 million. Over the past 12 months, the San Francisco-based bank paid an another , and has been pelted by lawsuits claiming it improperly . Besides going to court, consumers took other action, including taking their business elsewhere. Wells Fargo saw , and some existing customers went in search of a new bank. Consumers who wondered if fake accounts had been opened in their names from all three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax) to see if there were any errors or suspicious activity — so they could file disputes quickly. You can order a free credit report and credit score from . The best moves for Wells Fargo customers required that they be aggressive. What Equifax victims should do
In response to the second biggest hack of all time, , Equifax offered all Americans free credit monitoring for a year through its service TrustedID, which allows consumers to lock down their credit report. That’s not enough. “I think what’s being overlooked to some extent is the fact that the data that was compromised has perpetual value to a fraudster,” says credit expert John Ulzheimer. “In five, 10, 15 years that data will still be valuable to a fraudster.” But what can you do? You can’t change your name, date of birth or Social Security number as easily as you can get a fresh credit card. The least invasive step is to set up a , which normally last 90 days and tells creditors to contact you to verify your identity before approving you for new credit. If you place a fraud alert with one reporting agency, that should extend to all of them. A more permanent solution is to on each of your three credit reports. This will stop a fraudster from opening new accounts with financial institutions you’re not currently doing business with. You have to pay around $10 for each freeze, in addition to a fee to unlock the freeze when you want to apply for a loan. Equifax has announced that it will until Nov. 21. It was not immediately clear whether you’ll still have to pay to unfreeze your account when you want to take out a loan, or if customers who paid for the service prior to the announcement will be reimbursed.
You ve got to move now
If you think you might need to enact a fraud alert or credit freeze, don’t put it off. No one is going to do any of that for you. Hackers almost certainly have your most sensitive personal data. Aside from enacting alerts and credit checks, you need to log onto your accounts just as you check out your fantasy football lineup or Instagram feed. Some Wells Fargo customers were willing to or , despite any inconveniences. You need to be just as willing to take control if you’re concerned about becoming an identity fraud victim thanks to Equifax. You can no longer afford to be passive. SHARE: Taylor Tepper Related Articles