Consumer complaint received 2017-09-10 00:00:00
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report — Reporting company used your report improperly
Company: EQUIFAX, INC.
State: KY

Complaint narrative:
-Firm : Equifax -Subject : Equifax Security Breach of  XXXX XXXX and the Poor Response from Equifax -On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX Equifax announced a security breach ( a few days after some of their Executives sold off tons of stock ) -Equifax opens up equifaxsecurity2017.com , a website that is not a subdomain of Equifax 's official website. This move causes considerable confusion for many people ( including myself ) -Records show this website was registered before company executives sold off stock - seemingly suggesting these Executives opened up their " golden parachutes. '' -Option to check if to see if your info was compromised in the breach is extremely buggy. When I first entered my information on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX, I was simply given the option to enroll for free credit monitoring for a year by a subsidiary of Equifax -Language used by Equifax as of XXXX/XXXX/XXXX seems to indicate enrolling means you waive your right to participate in any legal action against the firm -By XXXX/XXXX/XXXX, Equifax updates their equifaxsecurity2017.com website to 1 ) " fix '' the buggy form that tells you if your info was compromised and 2 ) update language to note that enrolling in the credit monitoring does not waive right to participate in legal action -Upon using the supposedly fixed version of the website, after entering my info I was told " based on the information [ I ] provided, [ Equifax ] believes my information may have been impacted '' -On the point above, the language used, which is considerably " floaty '' is a bit insulting ; as it should be a simple yes/no answer. Not a " we believe '' or " may have '' type response. Language suggests Equifax does not really know who is impacted -On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX the assertion above, that Equifax does not really know anything, seems to be confirmed by many users on the internet, who note that entering bogus information will sometimes result in the " based on the information you have provided, we believe your information may have been impacted '' response -I can confirm the veracity of the above. Upon entering my last 6 digits of my social security number as " XXXX '' and my last name as " fake, '' I was presented the above message. This indicates Equifax does not truly know anything about the situation. 

-On XXXX/XXXX/XXXX I went to Equifax 's standard website to request a credit freeze as a cautionary measure. Upon receiving my pin, I noticed something peculiar : the pin is not a pin at all. In fact, it is little more than a literal timestamp of the exact moment that the freeze was initiated. It is worth noting that the other two credit agencies do not use this methodology for pins. 

-All of the above should make clear that Equifax has handled consumer information - particularly very personal and secure information - carelessly. Moreover, their response has been just as careless. With all that said, I feel not only concerned about my risk of being a victim of identity theft, but I also feel incredibly insulted. Agencies such as Equifax should handle this type of data is if it is literally the XXXX XXXX, rather than handling this type of data as if it 's nothing more than common junk mail as Equifax has done. Additionally, it is even more insulting considering Equifax executives seem to be essentially fleeing the situation.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation