All Your Equifax Breach Questions (and Some Answers) in One Place
If you request a security freeze over the phone, Equifax said it will mail you your PIN, so don’t worry if
you don’t catch it over the phone when the automated voice reads it quickly without warning or repetition.
• What if a child’s Social Security number is showing
that it “may” have been compromised via the Equifax breach but the Equifax system won’t let parents sign up the child for monitoring due to their age or their lack of a credit file?
I’ve received dozens of emails from people who were able to get freezes from the Equifax website
but ran into technical problems when their PIN (the code to temporarily lift the freeze when they want to apply for credit) was supposed to appear on their screens.
A warning about the phone systems: The process ends with you receiving a PIN you’ll need when you want
to thaw your credit file (say, when you apply for a car loan or credit card sometime in the future).
When a thief shows up with your Social Security number
and address to apply for credit in your name, the lender will try to fetch your credit report before anything else happens.
Even if a minor was added as an authorized user to a credit card, Equifax has no indication
that its core consumer credit database was impacted by the cybersecurity incident.