Consumer complaint received 2020-01-31
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: CT
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Credit monitoring or identity theft protection services
Sub-issue: Problem with product or service terms changing

Complaint:
I have had my personal data stolen multiple time by various data breaches at XXXX, Equifax ( not sure which one or both ), XXXX, XXXX XXXX, and others, and received free credit monitoring services for one year. I appreciate that, however, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to understand all the thieves/hackers have to do is wait one year, for the credit monitoring services to end, then fraudulently use that data of 100s of millions of people. 

That said, I was chatting with one of these credit monitoring bureaus and found out that they are selling my personal information to credit card companies, financial institutions, who then market products to me. That is no big sin, I don't mind getting offers in the mail, however, when I see the big three credit monitoring agencies profiting gloriously off selling my information, and they don't properly protect that information, it's time for these agencies to provide 100 % of their monitored people with free monitoring reporting if they continue to sell this data for profit, OR require these agencies to to REQUEST FROM EACH AND EVERY PERSON IN THEIR DATA SET BEING SOLD PERMISSION TO MARKET OUR INFORMATION CLEARLY, OPENLY, AND WITHOUT AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT, WHILE OFFERING ONLY OPT-OUT FEATURES. We do not know the opt out features ... and searching for them is difficult and time consuming .... Since these companies sell our data, Please request congress to authorize a law, or if the rules of the CFPB allow, INSTATE SUCH RULES TO IMMEDIATELY CEASE AND DESIST THE SELLING OF PERSONAL DATA TO ANYONE, WITHOUT FREE CREDIT MONITORING PROVIDED FOR AS LONG AS THE DATA REMAINS FOR SALE. In essence Automatically OPT OUT everyone, and mandate OPT IN Policies that are clear, robust, and without obfuscation as part of some other credit card application the will automatically cause an hidden opt-in feature. We can not trust the XXXX, XXXX, Equifax, XXXX XXXX, XXXX  et al, who've been hacked to provide proper protections for this critical information, so FREE round the clock credit monitoring via electronic means is only a fair trade for our personal information to be sold. One year free service is insufficient, it needs to be 24/7-365 as long as they maintain our records, OR allow US to have 100 % of our information to be 100 % deleted upon request. To my knowledge I have not directly authorized these companies to obtain nor use my person financial data, thus I should have the right to have all of this data deleted. to avoid future breaches, reduce identity theft opportunities, and added risk, without having their free credit monitoring be applied to those whose data they've collected. It costed them nothing to send email alerts out for those that have monitoring services ... in fact they market these serviced directly to those whose data has already been breached by their negligence. This is downright unfair. 

ALL citizens should have the right to request to have 100 % of their data removed, they they will not properly protect it, and only allow the sales of such information as a direct OPT-IN policy that is properly explained and implemented. Certainly these credit bureaus can easily provide Citizens who's information they sell, with continuous monitoring whenever they sell, and NOT ONLY WHEN THEY GET CAUGHT IN NEGLIGENT ACTS OF BREACH OF DATA.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation