Category Archives: Uncategorized

More details on how the Equifax hack happened

This Wall Street Journal report gives more details on how the Equifax hack happened — more for me, at least. The report also includes this statement suggesting that Equifax's security is not so great: Alex Holden, chief information security officer of identity-theft monitoring company Hold Security LLC, says Equifax has long been considered a target for identity […]

Ed Mierzwinski’s blog post on republican efforts to weaken regulation of credit reporting agencies (posted just before Equifax made public its security breach)

Just two days before Equifax made public the massive hack of sensitive information of 143 million Americans — which Equifax kept secret for many weeks — U.S PIRG's Ed Mierzwinski posted this piece criticizing the three credit reporting agencies for their incompetence and congressional republicans for seeking to deregulate the industry. Here's an excerpt: What would you do […]

Public utility regulation for credit reporting agencies?

Over at Credit Slips, law prof Adam Levitin has written Equifax: A Call for Public Utility Regulation of Consumer Reporting Agencies. It's a comprehensive and interesting post, and it's worth reading the whole thing. He starts by explaining the hacking of Equifax in plain terms — what it was (for instance, how it is different from […]

Thousands of small-claims suits against Equifax, thanks to technology

This article by Gabrielle Hernandez explains that Chatbot company DoNotPay released a set of chatbots that can help consumers sue Equifax for negligence. Users provide their name and address to the bot, and it feeds the information into a state-designated form users can then print and file directly with the court. DoNotPay’s Equifax bots were first […]

23 class actions (and counting) against Equifax over its data breach

Read about it in this article by Kevin McCoy. An excerpt: Filed in 14 states and the District of Columbia, the federal lawsuits target either Equifax or the company's Equifax Information Services subsidiary. The legal complaints cite a range of legal claims, including alleged security negligence by Equifax, the delay in alerting the public and concerns about the free credit monitoring […]

Dep’t of Education delays acting on requests for student-loan forgiveness

The Washington Post reports: Tens of thousands of former students who say they were swindled by for-profit colleges are being left in limbo as the Trump administration delays action on requests for loan forgiveness, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press. The Education Department is sitting on more than 65,000 unapproved claims as […]

Did Equifax execs engage in illegal insider sales of company stock before disclosing the hack of its data?

Read this article by Pete Schroeder. An excerpt: Thirty-six U.S. senators on Tuesday called on federal authorities to probe the sale of nearly $2 million in shares of credit bureau Equifax Inc by company executives after a massive data breach this summer, and one compared their actions to insider trading. The lawmakers signed a letter […]

Watch this excellent “Sunday Morning” segment on CFPB head Richard Cordray

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray was the subject of a story that aired yesterday on CBS's "Sunday Morning" news program. To view it, click here or on the embedded video below. The story depicts Cordray as indefatigable — and "the best friend the consumer has ever had" — in the face of constant harassment […]