Equifax proves why we need consumer protection (Clete Wetli/al.com)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Clete Wetli
on September 12, 2017 at 9:00 AM, updated September 12, 2017 at 11:12 AM

Clete Wetli is a liberal political activist living in Huntsville and a regular contributor to AL.com. Email Clete at [e-mail] or visit cletewetli. com.

Months after discovering that the personal data of over 143 million Americans had been hacked, the credit rating company Equifax finally decided to let consumers know that their data had been stolen. Well, that's not entirely accurate. They announced that a breach had occurred and that they would let consumers find out if they had been affected, provided they do one tiny little thing. That teeny tiny thing happened to be waiving any legal rights to pursue action against Equifax for not properly protecting their personal data.

That's almost as good a deal as getting the one year's worth of free credit monitoring so you can learn how your personal data is being exploited and not being able to do much about it. There's probably a legal disclaimer on that, too, preventing you from taking any substantive action or getting any type of justice.

You probably should have thought about all that when you signed up for Equifax. Oh, that's right you didn't because no one ever asked you. That's just the price of having a credit rating, whether you like it or not. Trust me, it's all buried in the fine print somewhere.

This is just fabulous news for consumers after the Wells Fargo fraud where millions of people were signed up unknowingly for financial products. After their initial investigation where they claimed they had identified all the customers affected, Wells Fargo now says it involved several million more. Ooops. Well, they offered refunds to all the customers they bilked so everything should just be fine, right? The bank is still making enormous profits even after all their payouts to customers for ripping them off.
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While all this is going on, Republicans are still insisting that financial institutions, who are making record-breaking profits, are suffocating on over-regulation. Republicans are also pushing for more rules and obstacles to prevent consumers from suing corporations or getting any kind of redress.
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more: http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/09/equifax_proves_why_we_need_con.html

[Nitram]

1. Rapacious corporate thugs.

Disguise an attempt to get customers to sign away their rights and provide more personal information as a "Help" site.