Did any of you realize that you are a product?

I found this unsettling.


http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/11/opini...nd-government-act-opinion-schneier/index.html

yup

nothing good can come of this. In the digital age we are nothing but a number, we carry no more value than our digits.

In light of recent developments I have decided to freeze my credit. This essentially restricts access to your credit reports and makes it virtually impossible for someone who has access to your personal info to borrow money in your name as the borrower cannot get the info he needs. There is a small fee associated with this, but I think well worth it. Personally this is no big deal for me as I have not gone to a lender in years so why not freeze something I never use to further safeguard my finances.

The FTC has a nice FAQ about this and I have provided the link here.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs#what

This is from that CNN Link:

I also don't have a Gmail account, because I don't want Google storing my email. But my guess is that it has about half of my email anyway, because so many people I correspond with have accounts. I can't even avoid it by choosing not to write to gmail.com addresses, because I have no way of knowing if newperson@company.com is hosted at Gmail.

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News for him - all of them do it.
And NO I don't believe that places that one pays big bucks to to NOT do it won't do it.
But I have nothing to hide. I'm not plotting anything so I don't give a shit what the hell they do with my info.

TiredRetired said:

In light of recent developments I have decided to freeze my credit. This essentially restricts access to your credit reports and makes it virtually impossible for someone who has access to your personal info to borrow money in your name as the borrower cannot get the info he needs. There is a small fee associated with this, but I think well worth it. Personally this is no big deal for me as I have not gone to a lender in years so why not freeze something I never use to further safeguard my finances.

The FTC has a nice FAQ about this and I have provided the link here.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs#what

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IMHO everyone is looking at this issue wrong. The real burden of proof should be shouldered by the credit issuer or lender rather than the unfortunate victim of this crime. How they managed to hold victims responsible for their irresponsible lending practices is beyond comprehensible to me.

Bamby said:

IMHO everyone is looking at this issue wrong. The real burden of proof should be shouldered by the credit issuer or lender rather than the unfortunate victim of this crime. How they managed to hold victims responsible for their irresponsible lending practices is beyond comprehensible to me.

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I'm not looking at it wrong. I am looking at it in light of what is best for me and my family. In this day and age where it is considered acceptable and fashionable to not take responsibility for one's actions, I am going to be proactive and take whatever steps are necessary to protect my family's personal wealth. Anyone who is going to wait for Equifax to step up to the plate and do what is right in this is deluded and not thinking straight. This is not the first time they have allowed this to happen because of their incompetence and mismanagement.

Yes, calling Equifax and having them charge me $15.00 to "hide" my credit report after what they just let happen sucks, but no way am I going to not do it.

Believe me, they were recording the call when I called them to do this and I made it very clear what I thought. While making it clear I was not blaming the CSR, I let her know where I was putting blame in no uncertain terms.

I'm not saying you're wrong.... It's just a damn shame that the industry got away with making the victim financially responsible for the criminal misconduct of others. They should be forced to eat the losses themselves for their lenient lending standards.

Bamby said:

I'm not saying you're wrong.... It's just a damn shame that the industry got away with making the victim financially responsible for the criminal misconduct of others. They should be forced to eat the losses themselves for their lenient lending standards.

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I get you, now. Little foggy this morning I guess. I could not agree with you more and believe me, as I stated in my last post, I let them know on a recording exactly what I thought of their behaviour. At the very least, it made me feel better.

There will be a class action law suit coming, count of that. With over 100 million people potentially comprised it will be a big one. They have lost credibility over this, lets hope they lose a lot of money too.

I came online to Free my credit reports. The only things that are frozen are their websites.
They must be getting swamped.