Equifax is one of the country’s three main credit reporting bureaus. The company recently reported a data breach that affected approximately 143 million United States consumers and one in two South Carolinians. USC has partnered with The Department of Consumer Affairs to provide tips to consumers following the recent announcement of this breach.
Review the FAQs listed below for more information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Equifax has reported that the information was compromised between May and July of this year and includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver's license numbers. The data breach also included the credit card numbers of approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, according to Equifax.
Data breaches involving Social Security numbers are especially serious. If your information has been compromised, take the time to understand what that means and how you can better protect yourself moving forward.
If you have a credit report, there’s a good chance it was. Go to a special website set up by Equifax to find out.
Scroll to the middle of the page and click on “Am I Impacted,” go to the left hand side of the next page and click on “Am I Impacted” again. You will enter some personal information and the site will tell you if you’ve been affected. Be sure you’re on a secure network (not public Wi-Fi) when you submit sensitive data over the internet.
Regardless of whether or not your information was accessed, Equifax is offering one year of free enrollment in “TrustedID Premier” for all U.S. customers if you enroll by November 21, 2017.
TrustedID is a credit monitoring service that monitors all three major credit reporting bureaus – Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian – as well as provides you with copies of your Equifax credit report. You can sign up for this feature by visiting www.equifaxsecurity2017.com.
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Check your credit report. Monitoring your credit report can help you identify signs of potential identity theft. You are entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies.
Visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com to access those reports. You can pull all three at once, or you can stagger pulling your reports throughout the year.
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You can also learn more by visiting The Department of Consumer Affairs web page on the breach, and information regarding identity theft at the links listed below:
http://www.consumer.sc.gov/Documents/IDTU/ID_Theft/IDT_Tools_EqBr_Sept2017.pdf
http://www.consumer.sc.gov/Documents/IDTU/ID_Theft/idtheftguide.pdf
The Department of Consumer Affairs’ Identity Theft Unit is available to take calls on avoiding, detecting and resolving identity theft. They can be reached toll-free in South Carolina at 1-800-922-1594. To view additional identity theft resources or to report a scam related to the breach please visit www.consumer.sc.gov.
Keeping you and your family safe is our number one concern. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the Human Resources Benefits office at 803-777-6650.
Posted October 5, 2017