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Comment by sean2 | Hacker News Reader

This is great advice and appears to be a good thing to do, but I just feel weird giving equifax money to protect me from fallout of their data breach. It feels like I'm rewarding them for losing my data.

I bet millions of Americans, who are suddenly aware of their vulnerability to credit fraud and learning about these options, are paying for requests and freezes.

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Yeah, it bugs me too. What about letting "natural consequences" befall Equifax (or rather its customers)?

I take no action now. Scammer gets a $10k loan from BigBank using my info. I get the bill and report it as fraud. Write a few letters to clear it up (http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-re...). BigBank will be out $10k and is now motivated to figure out a better way to make loans.

Maybe that big bank should decide not to get credit reports from Equifax and not to send them data. It would be a way to show that self-regulation works before the government forces their hand.

I believe Equifax dropped the credit freeze charge due to the backlash [0]. The other reporting agencies may still charge however.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/your-money/equifax-fee-wa...

It didn't cost me anything to do a freeze with equifax; but I have heard of others paying. I am wondering if they only do it for free on those affected by the "hack"?

For the others, I had to pay - Transunion and Experian - $5.00 each; ChexSystems and Innovis were free also.

Yup. P/E of Equifax way up next quarter.

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