Identity Theft Blog

TransUnion, Equifax and Experian have finally seen the light. After fighting against legislation for years, all three major credit companies are now offering consumers the option to put a credit freeze on their credit reports. Previously, a credit freeze was only available in certain states and for those who had already been victims of identity theft.

TransUnion was the first to comply with Equifax following suit the next day. TransUnion will allow customers to block their credit reports starting October 15th. Equifax hasn’t released the details on their program yet but said they should have something solidified by next month. Experian is reported to have a plan in the works as well.

A credit freeze will allow consumers to prevent new accounts being opened in their names since most companies require a credit check before giving consumers an account on credit. Of course if a person applies for credit and the company at which they are applying does not do a credit check then the credit freeze will not be beneficial. But very few companies are willing to offer consumers accounts without doing a credit check. Once a company checks a customers credit and sees that there is a block on it, they will not be able to open an account until the block is removed. Therefore, if an identity thief obtains your information they will not be able to open new accounts in your name.

TransUnion will charge consumers $10.00 to put a freeze on their credit and the service will be free for Identity Theft Victims. There will also be a $10.00 charge to unblock the freeze in the event you need to apply for credit. Experian and Equifax have not listed their fees at this time but it is assumed their fees will coincide with TranUnions fees.

This is a major victory for consumers. It is nice to see that the major credit bureaus have finally stepped up to the plate and are offering a solution that we have always advocated.

Our Free Identity Theft Ebook outlines in detail how you can successfully protect your identity using a credit freeze. You can get your free copy here.

On Friday the Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said that one of its databases had been hacked and more than 6.3 million customers had their contact information stolen. The database also contained customer’s Social Security numbers and account numbers. Ameritrade has reported that only the contact information was taken and not the Social Security numbers and account information, which makes me wonder why a hacker would only take customer’s contact information when presented with so much more worthy information. A list of emails verses a list of Social Security numbers? Spamming verses Identity Theft? Which list do you think would be more lucrative to obtain?

Apparently Ameritrade has known about the hacking incident since at least May and the data on the servers may have been vulnerable since October. Ameritrade claims that the problem has been recently fixed, which is great, but it does not help those customers whose information has already been compromised.
The hacking incident was discovered when customers reported receiving unwanted e-mails on accounts used only for Ameritrade. Two of the customers ended up suing Ameritrade in federal court. The two clients who sued Ameritrade wanted the court to order the online brokerage company to tell customers about the problem but Ameritrade beat them to the punch and issued a press release before the hearing could be held.

Ameritrade is looking into the theft and cooperating with investigators from the FBI, Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and local authorities. They also hired ID Analytics Inc. to help with the investigation and Ameritrade plans to continue using them to monitor their servers for potential identity theft.

Mike Cook, who is the chief operating officer for ID Analytics, stated that they will keep checking customer’s information against other databases to watch for identity theft since it could occur later.

“Just because a breached file is not misused today, it doesn’t mean that it won’t be misused in the future,” Cook said.

The Ameritrade hacking incident is small when compared to the data breach that occurred earlier this year at TJX Cos. which was the biggest known data breach at a company. The TJX incident consisted of the theft of at least 45 million credit card numbers (yep, I was one of those customers). But the Ameritrade incident is still larger than most data breaches.

This just goes to show you how vulnerable our information really is and that even though we do all we can to keep our information safe, nothing is 100% full-proof.

For those of you who are clients of Ameritrade, I would suggest:

• Opening a new Ameritrade account.
• I would also suggest getting our Free Identity Theft Ebook to prevent Identity Theft.
• If you have been a victim, I would suggest you follow the steps outlined in this list.
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Here are a few recent articles I have written on Identity Theft. Both articles will show you how vulnerable our information really is and how easily people can get a hold of and have access to our personal information.

Identity Theft at the Gas Pumps?

Purse Snatching and Identity Theft: New Opportunities for an Old Fashioned Crime