South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is one of 33 state attorney generals urging Equifax to stop pushing its own fee-based credit monitoring service after the massive data breach affecting 143 million people.
In a letter to the company, leaders are asking Equifax to disable links for enrollment in its fee-based monitoring. They’re also asking Equifax to reimburse consumers who are charged fees to freeze their credit.
The investigation was launched as soon as Equifax publicly disclosed the breach, earlier this month.
“The people of South Carolina are angry about this breach and the potential for identity theft,” Attorney General Wilson said. “For Equifax to give the impression that it’s trying to make a profit off of its own breach makes them even angrier, and understandably so.”
The personal information of more than 2,366,000 South Carolinians was compromised in the breach.
The attorneys general also said that, although Equifax has agreed to waive credit freeze fees for those who would otherwise be subject to them, the other two credit bureaus, Experian and Transunion, continue to charge fees for security freezes. The attorneys general said that Equifax should be taking steps to reimburse consumers who incur these fees to completely freeze their credit.
The attorneys general have also had communications with Equifax expressing concerns about terms of service relative to the free credit monitoring services and the prominence of service enrollment information on Equifax’s Web page. Equifax was responsive to these concerns, according to the press release from the SC Attorney General’s Office.
The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office suggests consumers who may be affected get more information from the SC Department of Consumer Affairs’ identity theft unit on steps you should take to protect yourself.
