There were questions from Chase Bank about an applying for a credit card that someone was attempting to open in his name. Mifflin, who exists in San Antonio, says he called the bank and was told the identity thieves have my Social Security number.
He set up fraud warnings with the three major credit recording companies. But he says the deceitful attempts to open credit cards remained “multiple times a week, multiple times a day.”
The Equifax security breach the biggest known theft of Social Security numbers in history has legislators, prosecutors and identity theft victims like Mifflin angry with the organization. The revelations have put a limelight on the industry, raising some significant and deeper questions and sparking calls for tough new jurisdictions to reshape the credit reporting landscape.
Mifflin soon discovered himself talking to agents about debts he didn’t recognize. He kept seeing requests to open credit cards on his credit report and would call the bank to say “don’t issue those cards, it’s fraud.” He says he would wake up in the middle of the night annoyed and angry.
Even to find any of this, Mifflin says he’d had to employ up for a service with the credit recording firm Experian, paying $26 a month. He says that was frustrating too, to have to pay some $300 a year “just to get my information that they’re collecting.”
“That’s my data; I should have entree to that at any time for free,” he says.
Mifflin put a freeze on his credit report with the credit agencies. That apparently finished anybody from opening new accounts. But he had to pay more money for that.
Then the Equifax hack got to the light, involving stolen Social Security numbers and other records of more than 145 million Americans. “My rage level really, really kicked up after that,” Mifflin says. He doesn’t know whether he was a victim of that hack. The Equifax website told him his data may have been stolen.
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