Equifax Gives Free Credit Monitoring To Pretty Much Everyone In The U.S.

In July, Equifax discovered its security systems had been compromised and the financial data of up to 143 million Americans had been stolen. Compromised data included names, addresses, social security numbers, drivers license numbers, birth dates, and credit card numbers. It was, quite frankly, a colossal screw up.

Equifax has a website you can use to see if your data was part of the compromised information. Visit https://trustedidpremier.com/eligibility/eligibility.html and enter your last name and the last 6 digits of your social security number.

If your data was affected, I would strongly suggest signing up for the TrustedID Premier service Equifax is providing for free. Do this by visiting https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/ and clicking the Enroll Now button. Enrollment is offered for free through January 31, 2018.

And here's a bonus - even if your data was not affected, you can still sign up for one year of this free service. Yes, anyone and everyone in America can sign up for this for free before January 31! Note that when signing up, you will be asked certain questions from your credit history - things like what street have you lived on, who you've had a mortgage with, etc. These are multiple choice questions and should be fairly easy to answer.

This is 100% free. There is no auto-renewal after 1 year where you have to pay. You don't have to provide any payment information to sign up.

The Benefits

By signing up for TrustedID Premier, you get:

• Identity Theft Monitoring - Your credit report at all three major credit bureaus will be monitored for suspicious activity.
• Free copy of your Equifax Credit report - This is in addtion to your yearly free copy you can get from annualcreditreport.com
• Ability to lock your Equifax credit report - This will prevent unauthorized third parties from accessing you credit. This is slightly different than a credit report freeze (more on that later).
• Social Security Number Monitoring - They will monitor the internet for appearances of your social security number of sites that sell such information.
• $1 Million Dollars Of Identity Theft Insurance - This will pay for certain out of pocket expenses if you are affected by identity theft.

Lock Versus Freeze

The old way to stop people from accessing your credit report was to put a freeze on it. You can unfreeze your report by phone, mail, or online by using a PIN you set up when your placed the freeze. Placing or removing a freeze can cost money, depending on the state you reside in.

I've done this in the past and it was a pain in the ass. This was probably because I forgot my PIN and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove my identity.

A lock is a more modern process and can be readily turned on and off with mobile devices. This can be done immediately and on demand.

Both locks and freezes must be done for each credit bureau separately.

The Bottom Line

The Equifax data breach was huge and its full effect might not be felt for some time. Your stolen data may be sitting dormant for months before it gets sold. Be proactive and protect yourself from identity theft by enrolling for a year of free coverage with TrustedID Premier.