Equifax Breach

What You Need To Know

BHCFCU is here to help with protecting your personal information. Although we have no way of knowing which of our members was affected by the breach, we can provide you with information to help you understand what you can do to find out if you or your family members were affected. Most of the information below was pulled from the Federal Trade Commission’s website.

Sensitive information of 143 million Americans and approximately 400,000 U.K. citizens was exposed in the Equifax Data Breach from mid-May through July 2017. Hackers were able to retrieve people’s names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and in some cases driver’s license numbers. Credit card account numbers for about 209,000 people, and dispute documents containing personal identifying information of about 182,000 people, were also obtained. An unconfirmed number of Canadian citizens have also been affected. –Seena Gressin, Attorney, Division of Consumer and Business Education.

The following resources are available for consumers:

Websites:

www.consumer.ftc.gov

• You can find the full article regarding the Federal Trade Commissions (FTC) advice and investigation
• Search the site’s FAQs for information on placing a credit freeze, and or a fraud alert

www.idtheft.gov

• Provides valuable tools to report ID Theft and offers information in protecting your personal information

www.equifaxsecurity2017.com

• Find out if your information was exposed
  • Click on “Potential Impact” tab
  • Enter your FULL name
  • Last six (6) digits of your social security number
• Be aware that when using an unsecure network/computer further puts your information at risk, please make sure you are using an encrypted network. Accessing through public wifi is not an encrypted network.
• You can sign up for free credit monitoring, but read the fine print some of your consumer rights may be waived

www.annualcreditreport.com

• Obtain a FREE copy of your credit report from all three credit reporting agencies. It is best to pull report sporadically throughout the year so you can see any changes during the course of the year.

Broward HealthCare Federal Credit Union checking account holders with ID Theft Recovery product may receive free credit monitoring if your identity has been compromised either by this breach or any other incident. If your account is being deducted $1.95 each month then your accounts, your spouse’s and your children’s under age 25 years are all covered under the one fee. Just a quick phone call to us if your information has been compromised will get you on the path to recovery.

What else can you do?

• File your taxes as early as possible
• Respond immediately to ANY letters from the IRS
• Monitor your accounts regularly for any unauthorized transactions
• Pull at least one of your credit reports and review for any suspicious activity
• Be aware of scams! Equifax will not contact you set up credit monitoring, the IRS will only contact you via USPS, and your financial institution will not contact you by phone, or email to verify any personal information or to set up credit monitoring.