Equifax needs more than wrist slap

“Hi. This is Ray.”

At this point, I know this is not a legitimate call. I know two Rays:

• Ray Mondragon with the Eastern Plains Council of Governments. I’ve always known him as Raymond.

• Our newspaper’s former publisher, Ray Sullivan. We always got along despite our opinionated natures, but we are not the kind of people who called each other to say hi.

This Ray is clearly up to no good.

“I’m with the New Mexico firefighters, and ...”

And *click* ... well, it’s a cell phone, so there’s no click. Instead, it’s an unsatisfying tap on the “end call” button. Then I say, “click,” to myself, and hope nobody was watching me just now.

I learned a few simple lessons from my parents long ago:

• If they’re worth your money, they’re not coming unannounced to your door or cold-calling you.

• Seven words, nothing else. “I don’t buy things over the phone.”

I find it hard to believe a penny I give “Ray” will ever help a New Mexico firefighter. Also, the third time I’ve got the call from a different number, I figured out it was a recording.

I always think, “Who falls for these?” and part of me says that anybody who’s scammed just proves a fool and his money quickly part ways.

But what happens if I was scammed without doing anything wrong?

Credit-reporting company Equifax on Thursday disclosed “criminals” stole vital data from about 143 million Americans. Nothing major, just things like Social Security numbers, birthdays, address histories and legal names.

The better your credit score is, the bigger the identity theft you have to worry about. About a decade ago, with my score floating in the 600 range, I’d have to cross my fingers applying for a Best Buy card. After years of working to get my score into the 800s, now I’ve got to worry some random criminal can defraud a store out of four or five figures using my information.

Equifax is offering credit monitoring, but that’s very little solace. Credit monitoring is like me calling my neighbor, “Sorry to bother you on vacation, but somebody’s robbing your house right now. You should probably call the police. I’m gonna get back to my Netflix binge.”

A few other things are bothering me about this:

• If you don’t do it right, signing up for the free monitoring service — which was offered because they screwed up — eliminates your right to participate in a class-action lawsuit.

• The company knew about the breach on July 29, but waited nearly six weeks to disclose anything.

• During those six weeks Equifax knew about the breach and nobody else did, a trio of Equifax executives sold $1.8 million in company stock. The stock hit a seven-month low Friday.

Equifax has said the right-to-sue waiver doesn’t apply to this event and the executives knew nothing about the breach when they sold off stock. Not sure why I don’t trust them.

I hope nobody at Equifax put their own interests ahead of the consumers they were supposed to protect. But if they did, will anybody go to jail?

Given our history after the 2008 bank bailout, I think we know the answer: Nope, it’s a fine that barely cuts into the profit margin.

Sorry, I’ve got a call. Let me ask “Ray” what he thinks of all this.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]