Why Didn’t We See This Coming?
Equifax knew about the data breach for three damn months before they made it public. During those three months, all their executives unloaded their stock.
They should go to prison. But, Republicans in Congress? Republicans in Congress should go to hell.
It’s hard to miss the irony. Last Thursday, on the same day Equifax announced its massive data breach, Congress held a hearing on a bill that would roll back regulations on the nation’s credit bureaus.
Get this – the legislation would cap actual damages and totally eliminate punitive damages.
What this means is that credit bureaus can play fast and loose with your data and face a very low risk of being sued. And even if they are sued, the damages are far less than the money they would spend actually protecting your data.
The only way to keep businesses from killing you is punitive damages.
Do not talk to be me about the purpose of this legislation being to “curb abuses in the court system.” There’s already remedies in place for that.
All this does is gives permission to credit bureaus to not be accountable.
“These bills not only hurt consumers, they ultimately have a negative impact on the marketplace by, for example, removing incentives for credit bureaus to ensure accurate information in credit reports.”
And if you don’t think the timing on this legislation means congress (at least the Republicans) knew about the breach before we did, you can kiss my butt.
Y’all, I hate these people. I really do.
Not to worry. No job killing regulations or legal remedies are required here. Living in a capitalist utopia we can, as always, count on the free market to solve this problem. Ya see – if you don’t like Equifax as your credit bureau you can just swi……uh, wait. Nevermind.
1Wall the bastards up. Alive. I have never hated an entire group but I must say the rethugs in congress deserve every lunch of disgust, hatred and loathing that may be mustered. I don’t trust any of them as far as one centimeter. As for the credit scammers who dumped their stock, sue their asses off. The only way to protect your credit is to freeze it. Then no one can use anything without your permission. Call Trans Union or another agency and they will give you the steps.
2My first thought was to the timing of the Rethugs cozy credit bureau bill too, put nothing beyond these sleazy bastards.
3Good place to look for some really slimy slugs would be digging out any Congresscritters dumping the same stock too.
Seems that what the Equifax execs did would meet the definition of “insider trading”. Don’t we have any laws covering that anymore?
Writ twit comment. They can’t ram this thing through the Senate with sixty votes. SUE, SUE and SUE! My Father died of Alzheimers. His Bank crammed a credit card he would never have been competent to order. They charged his bank account for fees on an account he never used. This is vulture capitalism.
4So, where is Elizabeth Warren on this thing? What in the hell happened to the vocal Democrats of yore? I have not read of or heard a peep in two rollicking, roiling months of scandal after scandal. What in the hell happened?
We so need the Democrats to get off their butts and show some backbone. What happened to the new Chair of the Party? I can’t even think of his name right now because it is NEVER in the news. Damn it! And, damn these credit card data companies to hell.
5I just poured myself a shot of Rodham Rye to ponder this latest abuse of, well, ALL of us. I am sick of it (not the rye…these gals in DC who make the stuff are A Okay…and I’m not even a regular whiskey drinker).
6Just like poppa bush ( you know the perjurer/liar Iran-contra diaries- traitor) testifying on the hill in favor of export exemptions to allow dual use technology to Iraq while the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was occurring.
7Question, with obvious answer, is who was/is the greater threat Saddam Hussien or he financial industry.
Financial industry.
Here’s the best part, they want to charge customers $30 a piece for a credit freeze which is the best protection you have from ID Theft. If half of those hit by breach buy a “credit freeze” then Equifax makes $700 million off their own mistake.
8I despise these people, I really do!
The problem is that the folks at Transunion and Experion are basically the same folks at Equifax. They’re just playing for a different team that haven’t been affected by hackers. So far. We think. Right? Wait a minute, how would we know? Equifax had 3 months and we’re just now hearing about it.
9We’re really talking about pure capitalism now. As in unregulated. Pure capitalism is a system where morality is left out of the equation. The only thing that matters is personal gain. If someone else suffers as a result, tough sh*t. It’s the system we had in our country up until socialist ideas started affecting policy. Protecting people from those with power. And credit agencies definitely qualify as institutions of power. They’re doing what institutional capitalism demands. Protecting the interests of themselves and their stockholders. It’s only government regulation that protect us common folk and allow us to get ahead. The American dream is regulated capitalism. It built the middle class. And now we’re steadily allowing the elimination of the very protections that allowed our country to thrive.
I don’t use any of those “credit score” companies but my bank does. Is this dangerous or what?
10Mark @ 5: Warren is there and speaking out, along with other Democratic Senators. Irma probably has affected coverage in “the news” but I think some onus is on the gajillionaire own major media:
http://nypost.com/2017/09/08/sen-warren-slams-equifax-for-tricky-move/
11Our only hope may be, ironically, the credit card companies. That is, if the rule that consumers are only liable for the first $50 of fraudulent charges on a credit card is still in place. Once they start bleeding millions in written-off charges, they’ll start enacting their own security more stringently. But I don’t know if the $50 rule is still there, or has succumbed to legislative chicanery. I do know that many of them offer credit card “insurance” for $14.99/month, which is pretty damned expensive.
Also, if consumers lose faith in the credit card system, these companies will take a huge financial hit. Many people like me depend on credit for lots of things like medical/dental expenses, home repairs, etc. We can’t afford them otherwise, so we’re vulnerable, and can’t easily eliminate our debt. But more affluent users often charge things for convenience, travel miles, or other perks. They have the option of switching back to cash or checks. If they don’t want to lose these very lucrative customers, the credit card industry needs to do its own policing.
12GOP “Freedom To” screw you vs Democratic “Freedom From” getting screwed.
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