We all heard about the hackers that plundered Equifax and stole an incredible number of customer files. Chances are criminals now have or will shortly have enough information to make millions of us identity theft victims. But this has happened before and we have been playing the odds for many years in hopes we do not become one of the 10 million Americans who become victims every year.
What most do not know is Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA), like Equifax, supply credit information to thousands of enterprises, both government and non-government, in order to help identify customers. If you applied for Social Security benefits on line, a bank loan over the phone, etc., you may have been asked questions about your past residences, about your home mortgage, or other information that supposedly only you would know. These questions are made up based upon CRA information and for most enterprises it is their only means of determining identity.
Well now the criminals can answer those questions. The identity thieves will be able to read the answers right off the stolen Equifax file. Ironically these thieves may do a better job of answering questions than you can since you would be relying solely on memory. Do you remember the name of your mortgage holder in 2004?
So we continue to play the odds, which is a matter of waiting until it is our turn to be a victim of identity theft. But there is a solution - we can devise the means to prevent these thieves from using fake identity documents to masquerade as us and steal from us. The solution is laid out in my book An Identity You Could Own which is available on Amazon and through Apple's iBooks at a cost of $0.99.
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