Thursday, February 22, 2018

Equifax In the News, New York - November 2017

In November 2017 while in New York the major news on TV was that Equifax website and database were hijacked.

They have been hijacked in August 2017 and all personal informations of 150 million a of Americans and Canadians made public. Before informing the public Richard Smith the CEO sold his shares of the company.
Then he quit or retire for personal reasons.

And instead of being jailed for inside trading he had public hearing that were televised; There he was asked how to fix the problem.
In the same time Equifax got a contract without bidding from the USA government to keep track of the taxes of all citizens of USA.

In Canada a friend of mine receive a letter with the SIN Number uniquely identifying each citizen in Canada with the stolen information from Equifax. She was asked to redo her taxes that otherwise she will loose her benefits. She is retired. And she did her taxes. A fake internet link was provided to post more personal information online.

History

1898: Equifax’s roots begin in this year as a Tennessee-based grocery story. Founded by brothers Cator and Guy Woolford, each got their start in the credit business as grocers, where they compiled lists of customers based on their creditworthiness.
1899: The Woolfords moved to Atlanta with the goal of making credit reporting their new career. In Atlanta, Georgia, in 1899, the Retail Credit Company was born. Compiling credit information into a book, the Woolfords sold copies to merchants. The company posted a loss of more than $2,000 in its first year, but sold many more books the following year.
1901: Retail Credit Company expands into the moral hazard market, selling credit information to life insurance companies.

They started their credit investigations by going door-to-door among merchants, asking about their customers and noting the findings in ledgers. Cator, a former bank employee, and Guy, a lawyer, employed simple notations to reflect merchants' comments about their shoppers' payment habits: "Prompt," "Slow," or "Requires Cash." They published these findings as "The Merchant's Guide," sold it for $25, and offered individual credit reports.

The Retail Credit Company continued to grow into one of the largest credit bureaus. By the 1960s it had nearly 300 branches in operationand was beginning to compile its data onto computers, giving many more companies access to this data—if they chose to purchase it.

They collected all kinds of consumer data;details about people including their marital troubles, jobs, school history, childhood, sex life, political activity and more. There was no limit to the kind or amount of data they were collecting, and they were scrutinized for selling this data to just about anyone who would buy it.

Some of the information was factual, while much of it was completely false—some was no more substantial than rumors! Equifax was even said to reward their employees for finding the most negative information about consumers.

In response, when the US Congress met in 1971 it enacted the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This new law was the first to govern the information credit bureaus and regulate what they were allowed to collect and sell.

Equifax that act like a spy of everyone in north America controlling when you buy anything how much how much debt you have is using this information stolen from everyday person in USA and Canada to sell stocks in open market. So it collects money from other people investors because has stolen info of every citizen. 

Net income‎: ‎US$ 488.8 million (2016)
Number of employees‎: ‎9,500 (2016)
Revenue‎: ‎US$ 3.144 billion (2016)
Key people‎: ‎Rego Barros Jr. (interim chief executive)

The system is too big to fail for such companies is not true. In India were the Canadian databases were exported for the telemarketing purposes was formed a system where Indians were hired to call Canadian from these databases to asked them for money  to pay old unpaid taxes and the money were transferred trough phone cards. That system generated jobs too unethical jobs. It was disabled. So there is hope that such companies should cease to exists.


Links
http://www.creditrepair-pro.com/equifax-exposed/
https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-economy/equifax
https://keycreditrepair.com/brief-history-equifax/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equifax
https://theoutline.com/post/2366/it-s-worse-than-you-think?zd=1&zi=xadzssye
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/equifax-inc-history/



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