Identity Theft Is Not A Joke
October 12, 2023 8:14 PM Subscribe
My workplace was broken into recently and some of my personal tax/HR records were stolen (along with several other employees'). The company has reported the crime to the police, and offered me 2 years of Equifax "Complete Premier" credit monitoring. What else should I do in response to this?
The records that were stolen include some T4 slips (this is in Canada, if that matters), payroll records, and some information about our company pension, including information on my family. Basically, all of the information that is needed to steal my identity!
The Equifax monitoring looks... cursory. I think I am decently savvy in terms of my security practices (use MFA, use a password manager to make long/unique passwords, etc). What else should I be doing for this?
The records that were stolen include some T4 slips (this is in Canada, if that matters), payroll records, and some information about our company pension, including information on my family. Basically, all of the information that is needed to steal my identity!
The Equifax monitoring looks... cursory. I think I am decently savvy in terms of my security practices (use MFA, use a password manager to make long/unique passwords, etc). What else should I be doing for this?
I'd go find a better monitoring arrangement and ask your company for 10=20 years of that.
posted by amtho at 10:35 PM on October 12, 2023
posted by amtho at 10:35 PM on October 12, 2023
The Equifax monitoring looks cursory because it is cursory, and that's a polite description.
Absolutely put a freeze on your credit at all of the major credit bureaus. The downside is that if you ever apply for credit with the freeze on, you'll get rejected, probably with a notice saying, "Hey, you applied for credit with us, but (such-and-such-credit-bureau) told us you have a freeze on. If you still want credit from us, turn the freeze off temporarily at (that-credit-bureau) and then apply to us again."
That may sound like a pain, and it is to an extent, but it's not really all that bad. You can (at least at the credit bureau I've temporarily unfroze; I forget which one it was), it's pretty easy not only unfreeze it, but also at that same time set it up to be automatically refrozen in, say, a day or two.
posted by Flunkie at 6:00 PM on October 13, 2023
Absolutely put a freeze on your credit at all of the major credit bureaus. The downside is that if you ever apply for credit with the freeze on, you'll get rejected, probably with a notice saying, "Hey, you applied for credit with us, but (such-and-such-credit-bureau) told us you have a freeze on. If you still want credit from us, turn the freeze off temporarily at (that-credit-bureau) and then apply to us again."
That may sound like a pain, and it is to an extent, but it's not really all that bad. You can (at least at the credit bureau I've temporarily unfroze; I forget which one it was), it's pretty easy not only unfreeze it, but also at that same time set it up to be automatically refrozen in, say, a day or two.
posted by Flunkie at 6:00 PM on October 13, 2023
« Older How to explore therapeutic use of... | Have you gone to a Wu Tang & Nas concert this... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kschang at 8:33 PM on October 12, 2023