How do I know if I’ve been affected by the Equifax breach?
Equifax has a website where you can check. The company will not inform you otherwise, even though it has your address (which was one of the things that the hackers helped themselves to). But even if your name doesn’t appear on the website , it’s probably a good idea to freeze your credit anyway. Why is freezing important? When a thief shows up with your Social Security number and address to apply for credit in your name, the lender will try to fetch your credit report before anything else happens. If it can’t retrieve the report because of the freeze, then no new account for the thief. I’ve used the Equifax site a few times in the last several weeks and have received different answers about whether I was affected. How do I know which answer is the right answer? According to the company, thieves took names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses for up to 145.5 million people. They also helped themselves to some smaller number of driver’s license num...