If you're willing to overlook their poor reputation and unwillingness to improve security after the attack, Equifax is worth considering. It does offer a reasonably good selection of services and products for both identity theft protection and credit monitoring.
Signs of identity theft might include:
All U.S. consumers can now get 7 free Equifax credit reports per year through 2026 by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com.
Credit Karma allows you to monitor your TransUnion and Equifax credit report score at no cost. Your credit score—the VantageScore 3.0—is updated daily.
If you pay for a credit monitoring service
The cost makes sense if: You're already the victim of identity theft or at high risk of it, for instance, if your Social Security number already has been disclosed in a data breach or you've lost your Social Security card. You don't want to freeze your credit reports.
The credit scores and credit reports you see on Credit Karma come directly from TransUnion and Equifax, two of the three major consumer credit bureaus. They should accurately reflect your credit information as reported by those bureaus — but they may not match other reports and scores out there.
Contact the SSA on 1-800-269-0271 or alert them via the IRS Identity Protection website so that no one files a tax return and steals your refund! You may want to file a police report in the local jurisdiction where the identity theft took place so that you have a record of the incident. That may come in handy!
If you want to check whether your data was exposed, the FTC and official settlement site have an online tool you can use to check if you were part of the Equifax breach. You'll need to enter your last name and last six digits of your Social Security number to see if your data was part of the hack.
7 Steps to take after your personal data is compromised online
Equifax is indeed paying out right now—but not to you. Instead, the company has finally agreed to pay the banks (PDF) for the inconvenience of having to cancel and reissue millions of credit and debit cards, The Register points out.
It's been one year since the settlement involving tens of millions of victims of the colossal Equifax data breach received final approval and the deadline passed for filing initial claims. There's still been no payout.
On AnnualCreditReport.com you are entitled to a free annual credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies. These agencies include Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
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