Equifax and Corporate Entitlement

Equifax is what my Mama would have called "Full of Itself." 

First they think it is okay to collect all our financial information without our permission and give us a "credit score" used to alter our lives, and now they think a slap on the wrist is good enough punishment for having allowed such information to be stolen.

Only ONE FREE YEAR of credit monitoring for endangering my credit for the rest of my life???  How is that a just and fair punishment???

This is not my first rodeo. The state of South Carolina already gave my information to hackers long ago. Because of that I always keep my credit frozen unless I am buying a house or car or applying for credit or something. I unfreeze it for that, then I freeze it again. Having said that, here's what I think:

I think signing up for the Equifax free year of credit monitoring is the only way to make them pay anything at all for letting hackers have my information. Since the hackers already have my info, I see no harm in entering it again to sign up for this service. Besides, my credit is frozen. So what do I have to lose by trying to get the free year?  I've been trying and trying and trying.

Equifax sincerely does NOT want anyone to sign up for the free year of credit monitoring.

First you enter your information and they basically tell you, "Yes! I did allow your information to be stolen!" but they use less true words. Then they give you a date in the future when you have to come back to their site on that particular date to sign up again. YOU have to remember the date, site URL, etc. You will receive no reminder of any kind, and if you forget, tough luck.  No free year of credit monitoring for you.

If you do set yourself a calendar alarm and go back to their site, you will enter even more of your information this time and then they will tell you that you will receive an email at some point in the future...maybe a week or more later...and the email might go in your spam folder so you have to be sure to look there everyday too. The email will have a link you can click to sign up.

I finally received the email about a week after signing up.  The email comes from TrustedID and looks like SPAM. The Subject says: Update on your TrustedID Premier Product. You have to open the email to see the word Equifax, which is an image, so you also have to have images turned on in your email to see it.  IF you do all that and believe the email is really from Equifax, you can use the link.

I clicked the link in the email  and completed the information they wanted to know.

Yep.  You guess it.  Their website was not working.  It also did not work the next day.  I emailed them and got two form email responses saying a customer service person would contact me. 

No.  No customer service person ever contacted me.

After waiting several days I just then got the website to work; entered my information; answered a pile of personal questions and supposedly have been signed up for the free credit monitoring.

However, NOW their website tells me that my free account will take at least 48 hours to become active, and I will have to come back after two more days to see if they really did activate my free credit monitoring. 

I bookmarked the site and will go back days later because I am stubborn.  I have to remember the password I used, the site address, etc. but I will do it. 

I expect to be less than impressed.

I think this runaround is a way for them to keep people from actually being able to sign up, or it is a way for them to frustrate people into NOT signing up and taking advantage of the free year of credit monitoring.

Most people are not as stubborn as me.  Most people would not waste that much of their time and jump through all the hoops to get this service.  I am not most people.

Equifax will do everything in its power to keep from having to pay one red cent in goods, services, or money for selling out millions of Americans, including me.  They obviously feel entitled to be able to do this with no consequences.

Makes me so very angry.

They should be prosecuted. The executives should do jail time. At the very least, the company should have to pay each victim the amount of money they have made off their information without their permission over the years. The victims should be paid money for this. Money is the only thing these greedy corporate slime monsters understand. If we don't make an example of them, others will not invest their time and money to secure our information either. Equifax needs to pay.

That is what I think.  It is time to put an end to corporate entitlement.  We, the People, need justice.

If you had possession of my personal property and allowed someone to steal it, what do you think would happen to you?