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Economic Influence & Networked Markets

Equif*cked: The end of credit reporting as we knew it

<![CDATA[After Equifax's epic data breach this week, I did the only sane thing a consumer can do. I froze my credit. When I got to freezing my Equifax credit report I received a failure notice.
Maybe Equifax should have taken their systems offline before the hack.

As of this week, the open credit report should be a thing of the past. And it will change Equifax’s business dramatically. Having been compensated for letting companies access our private credit data, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion will also be charging consumers to keep their information accessible when they want it to be. This is the so-called “freeze” on a credit reporting account.
Unfortunately, Experian’s protection scheme is deeply flawed, it’s insecure, and we should not have to pay these companies to do their job. We should not be the guardians of the data they store, turning access on and off to control when our credit is visible to companies.
The credit reporting agencies are turning their poor security regimes into an excuse to collect more money from consumers. A radical rethinking of the credit reporting system is due, and the time has come.
And now that it is here, Equifax is already failing to provide consumers with the ability to freeze their accounts.
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