The Equifax Hack What You Need to Know and Do

Kevin M. Smith, CLU, ChFC, President, KMS Wealth Management, Inc.

What We Know

From mid-May through July, approximately 143 million Americans may have had their personal data compromised. Of these, around 209,000 had their credit card numbers stolen and roughly 182,000 had dispute documents stolen, which contain personally identifiable information.

Why It’s Important

Your credit score and credit reports are essential parts of your financial life.
■ They are referenced by institutions to determine whether you qualify for a student loan, mortgage, auto loan, credit card, insurance, apartment rental and even when you are purchasing a cell phone.
■ Breaches can impact your credit profile for up to one year since some identification types (e.g. Social Security Number) do not have an expiration date.
■ Stolen personal information such as Social Security, driver’s license and credit card information can be misused to steal credit.
■ People who steal your Social Security Number can also misuse it to obtain a tax refund or find employment - this is called tax identity theft.

What You Can Do

■ Check Equifax to see if your data has been exposed.
■ Check your credit reports via www.annualcreditreport.com.
■ Monitor existing credit card and bank accounts for charges you don’t recognize.
■ Sign up for Equifax’s free credit monitoring service.
■ Report suspected ID theft to the FTC and obtain a recovery plan.
■ Stay vigilant about people contacting you asking you for your personal information - even if they claim they’re from Equifax. The IRS does not contact people by phone asking for information.
■ File your taxes early to mitigate effects of tax identity theft. Do it before someone else uses your warning sign for tax identity theft is if the IRS sends you a deficiency notice stating you didn’t pay enough taxes.

FRM

Kevin Smith is President of KMS Wealth Management, Inc. and has partnered with FRSA to offer members a retirement option through TAG Retirement Program. More information about this program can be found on FRSA’s website, www.floridaroof.com under the Member’s Login section. If you have additional questions, please contact Kevin directly at 407-923-8724 or by email at kevin@kmswm.com, or visit his website at www.kmswm.com.