Ummm - Equifax? Berk.

IIRC Equifax has always been awkward when it came to credit freezes. I think I'll also have to mail in my stuff to them.

BTW, having a credit freeze in place shouldn't necessarily affect your ability to check your reports via annualcreditreport.com. I'd also sign up for creditkarma - yes, they only check the other two bureaus but at least you should get some notification of shenanigans and you don't have to pay for monitoring like you do with the credit bureaus. Just sign up before you put the freeze in place as the freeze doesnt affect existing relationships.

In reply to eastsidemav :

The big problem as I see it with mail is you don't know where that info is ending up. The transit part is pretty secure overall but what exactly happens to that shred of paper when finally lands at these privately held for profit entities?

At least if it's electronic it has to be physically removed, or stolen again, since the transit layer is generally secure. If it's paper and someone mixes up the shred and recycle bins that week you potentially have another avenue for a breach, dumpster diving is a super common method for data collection. I sure don't see any statements or guidelines from Equifax on how the physical copies are handled by employees. This whole thing is irritating beyond belief.

Either NYT or WaPo had an article talking about how all three of the agencies have effectively shut down communication with customers over the last day or two. The only way this could have been handled any worse is if the company sent out goon squads to burn down your house and kick your dog.

In reply to The0retical :

Credit freezes only affect new business relationships, so any institution that you already do business with that has current access to your credit score and file continues to do so. So those companies aren't really affected by your credit freeze, it's only companies that you don't have a relationship with (yet). Also, the credit freeze doesn't really freeze your credit, it freezes access to your credit report and prevents credit bureaus from selling on your data. So someone can still open an account as if they were you if they're opening an account with a company that doesn't run a credit check.

Re the fake accounts, I somehow doubt that a bank hokey enough to open fake accounts would be bothered to run a credit check (especially as that would trigger a hard enquiry and would show up on the credit report). Keep in mind that these were unwanted/unauthorised accounts for existing customers.

In reply to The0retical :

Yeah, ive been through the mail thing in the past, but it was in transit where there was a failure.  Back in 2001, my mortgage company was sending me back the paperwork they needed (originals, they wouldn't take copies), and I ended up getting an envelope that looked like it had been mauled by a sorting machine and it only had one of the documents left in it.  I didn't pursue things too hard back then, but sure was nervous about the potential for identity theft for a while.

It looks like annual credit report may let me apply over the phone for the credit report, but I'll probably still have to request the freeze by mail.

Trending advice in the credit freeze section of clark.com (Clark Howard) is to first setup a CreditKarma account and then freeze your credit with all three agencies.  CreditKarma gives you anytime access to your credit report from two of the three agencies (but I forget which two as I type this), as well as completely free credit activity monitoring for what that is worth.  You should be able to freeze all three online without having to send anything in, but word is (surprise, durprise) that Experian has been overloaded with freeze requests, so maybe give them a week to clear out the backlog.  Experian also says they are now doing freezes for free, but that is only for a BS 30 day period.  

Well, I gave it some time and just tried to get my annual free credit report.  Equifax rejected my anwers to security questions, so it appears their sytem is still FUBAR.  Coincidentally, I tried to freeze my credit report with them too, which also failed to work after I entered all of my infomration.  At least that provided an error message suggesting their system was down rather than just making it look like my file is personally jacked up...

System Currently Unavailable - Error 500

 

We're sorry. We cannot process your security freeze request online at this time. Please try back later.

Man I didn't think this could get worse then Equifax was found directing customers to a phishing site for weeks... How can an organization be so inept and still exist or hold so much power?

I wasn't on this train before but this really needs to be an extinction level event for them.

Since Equifax has now effectively blocked many (maybe most?) attempts for consumers to receive their complete credit report, or to freeze their credit at least since the news broke, I think it is HIGHLY relevant to know if they are still providing their services to "customers" on the back end.  (AKA are they still selling our data and providing verification for accounts to be opened)   I highly suspect Equifax is the reason I couldn't create a Credit Karma account this morning as well, so maybe anything relying on that bureau is already offline...  

WilD said:

Well, I gave it some time and just tried to get my annual free credit report.  Equifax rejected my anwers to security questions, so it appears their sytem is still FUBAR.  Coincidentally, I tried to freeze my credit report with them too, which also failed to work after I entered all of my infomration.  At least that provided an error message suggesting their system was down rather than just making it look like my file is personally jacked up...

System Currently Unavailable - Error 500

 

We're sorry. We cannot process your security freeze request online at this time. Please try back later.

Sorry to hear that.  Guess I won't even try to do it online.  Guess I'll need to call the phone number instead.

Guys ... keep trying.  I was able on Monday evening to successfully get my parents signed up with CreditKarma and their credit files frizen with all three agencies.  Eight successful transactions.  Guess it depends on the timing and workload at that time.

Thankfully I froze my credit before all that happened as I just received a letter from some random bank saying I was turned down for my CareCredit application.  Which I never applied for....

Equifax directs 200K customers to fake phishing website.

Yeah, they have their E36 M3 together.  And, their head of security has a degree in... wait for it... Music.