NORMAN, Okla. – Jesse McGowan is at risk for fraud.
“I’ve got like three different services watching my credit right now,” he said. “I’ve locked my credit files because of that and now we have Equifax.”
That’s because his personal information keeps getting hacked.
He says his debit card data was exposed during the Target hack and now there is word his information might have been compromised, again!
Jesse knows scammers will try to cash in on major events, like data breaches.
Now that the Equifax hack is everywhere in the news scammers are posing as credit monitoring and repair services.
Jesse says from his experience it’s easy to spot a legit credit monitoring service from a fraud.
“They asked me questions only a credit bureau could know,” he said. “It’s not anybody could guess those questions.”
Jesse, the recent target of a phone scam, involving a threatening automated message.
“Your taxes have been audited and are up for fraud and if you do not call back within the next 30 minutes this will be an omission for your arrest,” he said.
- Watch out for email and phone scams, especially in the wake of a security breach.
- A government agency or legit credit reporting agency will never ask for your personal information over the phone or in an email.
- Any scenario where they ask you to pay your taxes or a debt on a prepaid debit card is bogus.
We continue to expose these scams.
It might be a good idea to put an extended alert on your credit report.
Equifax is still offering one year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.
Whether you sign up for the service is up to you.