Whoo!
I'm still alive!
Man, it has been a pretty crazy last few weeks.
Survived Hurricane Irma taking a beating to Florida.
Flooding everywhere, half my city was underwater for a while, it was nuts.
But now everything's pretty much back to normal, the sun's out, life's good and
things are looking up.
Alright, breaking news this morning.
Credit reporting company Equifax says personal information of 143 million people has been
compromised -
[pained crying]
What is up, my fellow Money Minions!
My name is Troy, also known as - the Dollar Dude.
How have you been?
Welcome back to another video, and as all the money minions out there know, we talk
personal finance and building a life full of financial freedom here and we keep it as
simple as and real-world as possible.
If you're down with that and you're not yet a minion, hit that subscribe button and
that little bell icon next to it so you don't miss a second of all this chocolate.
What did you think I meant?
#kingsize
Ugh.
Equifax.
I'm a little late to the party - I'm sure you've all heard about this by now.
143 million people compromised, names, birthdates, addresses, social security numbers.
Equifax, come on!
I thought we had an understanding.
I've even written you letters in previous videos.
"My dearest, darling Equifax.
I know it's been a while since I last wrote."
"You and I - heh, we always had kind of a love-hate relationship."
'Cause apparently, you have no idea what the heck you are doing.
You don't deserve this fedora!
So people are livid, right?
Heads are rolling, the chief security officer and the CEO just "retired", things are
pretty bad over there.
But none of that matters, because the important part is this - 143 million consumers had their
personal information exposed.
This is serious.
So Equifax went into full damage control mode and set up a site where people could sign
up for a year of free credit monitoring.
Setting aside the fact that 1 year is not even close to enough - ramifications from
this could last well into the next decade - they also hid in the fine print that if
you signed up, you waive your right to join a class-action and agree to arbitration instead.
...a.k.a., you can't sue them for this.
I'm sorry, what?
And only after a huge amount of backlash did they drop it (or quote unquote "clarify")
that the auto opt into arbitration wouldn't apply to this data breach.
Still if you want to sign up for the 1 year of monitoring, I highly recommend you send
a letter certified mail within 30 days, explicitly stating you do not wish to be subject to binding
arbitration.
Aka, it's my data and I'll sue if I want to.
Better safe than sorry.
But yeah, in my opinion, I just say forget all that and not even bother with Equifax's
credit monitoring.
So what can you do?
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that identify theft is no joke and can take years
to try and clear up once it happens.
Let me know down in the comments if you or someone you know has ever been a victim of
identity theft, and how you handled that - also, any tips or tricks that you now use to keep
it from happening again.
Bottom line, take the steps to protect yourself.
I'm going to tell you what you should be doing right now.
Listen up, this one's important.
First thing you need to do is get your credit reports.
Remember, in the 4 Tips on How to Write A Dispute Letter video, which you watched, right?
I already told all the money minions out there how to do this, but in case you missed that
one, you're going to want to go to annualcreditreport.com.
Totally, 100% free to get your credit reports from each of the three bureaus once a year,
or every 4 months if you space them out.
Second thing I'd recommend is signing up for a free monitoring service like CreditKarma
or CreditSesame that allows you to monitory your reports yourself.
CreditSesame lets you pull an update every month, and CreditKarma lets you pull an update
every 7 days, but since it takes about 30 days for any new information to pop up on
your credit report anyway, it's pretty much the same thing.
Both of these services will try to suggest credit cards and other financial products
to you based off of your history.
That's how they make their money, it's fine, you don't gotta get mad, you can just
ignore it.
What you're looking for here is a free way to keep an eye on your credit reports more
frequently than annualcreditreport.com can give to you by itself, because the most frequent
you can keep an eye on that is pulling one bureau's report every 4 months.
Number 3, look into getting identity theft insurance.
It's not too late to look into identity theft protection because of this breach.
This isn't the first data breach and it sure won't be the last, and it's a good
bet to have this stuff in place.
Lots of places offer good plans on identity theft insurance, I know Zander Insurance is
one, off the top of my head.
Now you man say, "eh, identity theft protection is just a ripoff cause if your identity is
stolen, you're protected, the banks refund your money anyway."
That's right, for the most part they do.
But you're missing the point.
If you do lose money, the insurance will reimburse you, of course.
But the main benefit is not having to deal with spending hours and hours, day after day
on the phone or in the banker's office trying to clear this mess up.
Ain't nobody got time for that!
Your time is valuable and identity theft protection is meant to save you from all that hassle.
So it's a good idea to have it in place, believe me.
Number 4, and this is the BIG one: Think about putting a credit freeze in place.
Freezing your credit pretty much locks down your credit report and no new accounts can
be opened on it.
You can still use any open accounts just fine, but you can't create any new ones.
Each of the bureaus you do this with will provide you a security PIN number that you'll
have to provide back to them If you ever want to unfreeze it.
Now, freezing your credit reports is kind of like chopping an onion with a circular
saw.
For some people, it might be a little much.
If you've put in the work and time and saved up the 10% down payment for a house and you
were just about to go for it when this happened, well then, freezing your credit probably isn't
the best choice for you right now.
But it's an option for all of us.
But hey, if you're debt free and plan to stay that way, go ahead and freeze your credit
cause it's not like you're using it anyway.
Once your credit is frozen, that does NOT mean your job is done.
If you still have open credit accounts, you still need to keep a regular eye on those.
Freezing your credit only keeps new accounts from being opened without your say so.
It does not lock down your existing accounts, got it?
Those numbers can still be stolen and used by whoever.
You do have to call each bureau individually to initiate a credit freeze.
All three - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
Now it does cost a fee to do a freeze, Equifax has waived their fee because they're the
reason we're all in this mess, but Experian and TransUnion do have fees and they vary
by the state you're in.
When you call them up, some of them may try to talk you into "locking" your credit
report for free instead of "freezing" it.
I know TransUnion is one bureau that does this for sure.
What's the difference?
Well a credit lock is free, but it still allows the bureaus to sell your information to companies
for those pre-approved offers you get in the mail sometimes.
But, if you freeze your credit, they can't do anything with it, by law, without your
approval.
If you want to do a freeze to protect yourself, then do a freeze to protect yourself.
Don't let someone on the phone talk you out of it if that's what you want to do.
Look down below in the description, I've got the numbers you need to call for all three
bureaus if you want to do this.
Cause I got your back, fam.
By the way, if you choose to do a credit freeze, the phone numbers are getting slammed right
now, obviously.
Call in the middle of the night if you have to.
You'll get through eventually.
This Equifax data leak is a pretty bad situation nationwide, but hey, if you take the steps
to protect yourself and protect your financial freedom, then we can all breathe a tiny bit
easier.
And I'm all for that.
And this one is done guys, I'm so glad to be back.
Hit the like button if you liked it, or if you're not yet a Minion, subscribe to the
channel if you feel so inclined, we'd love to have you.
Also, if you've got a question, finance or otherwise, leave a comment down below,
let's talk about it.
So until next time, my fellow Money Minions, my name is Troy and I will see you guys...
...next Dollar!
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