Yesterday, thanks to lobbying pressure from the biggest credit reporting agencies, a House subcommittee held a hearing on whether to gut the consumer protections of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)—one of the few tools around that offers some recourse for Americans whose inaccurate credit reports interfere with their ability to buy houses, buy cars, obtain credit, get jobs, and rent apartments. We’re all very much at the mercy of what’s in our credit reports, but the credit reporting agencies (and their allies in Congress) want to reduce the penalties when the credit reporting agencies get it wrong—despite the havoc inaccurate reporting can wreak on our lives.
Also yesterday, Equifax, one of the big three credit reporting agencies, announced a that it had been subject to a massive data breach that exposed our most sensitive identification information, including our Social Security numbers, home addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and credit card numbers—information that puts the 143 million consumers whose information was compromised at high risk of identity theft and, you guessed it, highly inaccurate credit reports.
And this morning, Public Justice discovered that the site Equifax has set up to supposedly help customers identify whether their information was stolen as part of the hack has – you guessed it – a forced arbitration clause aimed at keeping consumers out of court, and shielding Equifax from lawsuits. (In another move that likely won’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention to Congress lately, lawmakers are also poised to try and kill a rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that prohibits financial institutions, like Wells Fargo, from using these clauses to escape accountability in the courts.)
Meanwhile, three Equifax executives sold $1.8 million in Equifax stock after the company discovered the breach but before it was publicly announced - an announcement that, not surprisingly, resulted in Equifax’s stock plummeting. That’s what we call insider trading, and, if you recall, that’s why Martha Stewart went to jail.
To sum up: Equifax put tens of millions of Americans at risk of identity theft at same time it was pressuring Congress to make it less responsible for inaccurate consumer information at the same time its executives were making possibly criminal moves to ensure their own personal wealth remained intact. Congress shouldn’t play along with Equifax’s bid to stay rich, screw consumers, and walk away scot-free.
People used to go to jail for stuff like this. Now their friends in Congress want to give them a get out of jail free card. That, to paraphrase Martha, definitely isn’t a good thing.
This post was co-authored by Public Justice Staff Attorney Leah M. Nicholls
Photo by GotCredit, via Flickr
