General Discussion

ck4829

(35,076 posts) Fri Sep 8, 2017, 10:45 AM Sep 2017

Is it time for Equifax to move out of state and assume a new identity... again?

Three Equifax executives sold shares of the credit-reporting company worth nearly $2 million shortly after a massive data breach was discovered. The sales occurred before the company announced the breach to the public on Thursday.

Equifax said in a statement to CNNMoney that it found out about the security incident on July 29 and immediately took action.

The credit-reporting giant is one of three firms, including TransUnion and Experian, that monitor the financial health of consumers and supply data to potential borrowers to help them decide whether someone should get a loan.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-insider-sales-hack-data-breach/index.html

Fun fact... Equifax looks up your history, but here's the history of Equifax.

Equifax was founded in Atlanta, GA, as Retail Credit Company in 1899. The company grew quickly and by 1920 had offices throughout the US and Canada. By the 1960s, Retail Credit Company was one of the nation's largest credit bureaus, holding files on millions of American and Canadian citizens. Even though they still did credit reporting the majority of their business was making reports to insurance companies when people applied for new insurance policies including life, auto, fire and medical insurance. All of the major insurance companies used RCC to get information on health, habits, morals, use of vehicles and finances. They also investigated insurance claims and made employment reports when people were seeking new jobs. Most of the credit work was then being done by a subsidiary, Retailers Commercial Agency.

Retail Credit Company's extensive information holdings, and its willingness to sell them to anyone, attracted criticism of the company in the 1960s and 1970s. These included that it collected "...facts, statistics, inaccuracies and rumors… about virtually every phase of a person's life; his marital troubles, jobs, school history, childhood, sex life, and political activities." The company was also alleged to reward its employees for collecting negative information on consumers.

As a result, when the company moved to computerize its records, which would lead to much wider availability of the personal information it held, the US Congress held hearings in 1970. These led to the enactment of the Fair Credit Reporting Act in the same year which gave consumers rights regarding information stored about them in corporate databanks. It is alleged that the hearings prompted the Retail Credit Company to change its name to Equifax in 1975 to improve its image.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equifax#History