October 10, 2017 | By RGR Marketing Blog

What Your Customers Should Do If They Were Victims of the Equifax Breach

The Equifax data breach saw the personal information of more than 143 million Americans stolen by hackers. Peoples’ names, addresses, birth dates, and Social Security numbers have been at risk since the breach occurred on July 29, 2107. So, the odds are good that your mortgage company might have one or more customers who had their information stolen, and this can cause stress, frustration, and concern.

As a mortgage professional, it is important that you help keep your customer calm during this fiasco and advise them on how best to protect themselves and their credit. Here is how your customers might be affected and what they should be doing to secure their credit information.

How Customers Can Find Out If They Were Affected

Just because your customer doesn’t see any foreign charges on his or her credit cards doesn’t mean they weren’t a victim of the hack. You should tell them to visit Equifaxsecurity2017.com to check if their information possibly could have been stolen.

What Should Customers Do If They Have Been Affected

Whether your customer’s information was or was not affected, you should advise them to enroll in the complimentary TrustedID Premier, which will monitor their credit activity across all three credit bureaus. The free enrollment period ends on Wednesday, January 31, 2018, but your customer should enroll as soon as possible.

Another, even more secure option is to have them freeze their credit. This will halt all access to their credit information while allowing them to maintain their current credit score. Equifax is waiving credit freeze fees for 30 days, until October 11, 2017, so if your customer wants to freeze their credit, they need to do so quickly.

They can freeze their credit at www.freeze.equifax.com. They should also freeze their credit at Experian and TransUnion as well, although they will have to pay for the freeze at these two agencies.

Frozen Credit and Mortgage Loans

Freezing one’s credit is the best way to keep hackers out, but it can be problematic for those wanting to buy a house. For this reason, when your customer is ready to start the loan process, you should advise them to “thaw” their credit.

They can do this by calling Equifax's automated freeze lift line at 1-800-685-1111. They can choose to either have their credit freeze lifted for a specific length of time or they can give the name of your mortgage company so it only can be given access to their report. Once their mortgage is approved, they can put the freeze back on.

Encourage Customers to Stay Vigilant and Follow Up

Even after freezing their credit, the customer should be made aware that they are not out of the woods yet. Social Security Numbers don’t have expiration dates, so if a person’s number was stolen, then a new line of credit could be opened in their name at any time, even ten years down the road. As a result, you will want to encourage your customers to stay vigilant, follow up by checking their credit regularly, and notify the credit bureaus the instant they suspect fraudulent activity.

Unfortunately, the impact of the Equifax fiasco is going to be felt for many years to come, and while there are some things your customer can do now to help minimize their risk, paying attention to their credit activity needs to become a part of their usual routine moving forward.

 

 

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