The irony of a billion dollar company losing my personal info and helpfully offering me credit monitoring service from the other billion dollar company that lost my info. It’s so good.
Throw into the mix: I had to do business with AT&T because they were the only ISP available to my Appartment complex. I never had the choice to not do business with these companies.
We finally got a viable replacement for Comcast internet. I changed the moment I was able to and couldn't be happier. 1.2Gbps symmetrical connection for $85 a month. That plus YouTube TV is $70 cheaper than what I was paying Comcast for their garbage service that had constant outages. Before, the only options were mobile internet or Verizon DSL.
It's really lame that companies like AT&T even need your SSN. Why do they need that to set up a phone line or an internet connection? There's gotta be a better way.
You can identify by other means. Or at least give the opportunity to use other means. If you can't keep my personal information safe, you shouldn't be allowed to collect it.
If only there were some sort of moniker you went by other than a SSN. That coupled with some sort of location data could narrow you down to, ooh, one person I suppose.
In the UK we have NI number, which is used by my employer, pension provider, the tax services, the benefits office, and that's pretty much it. It's not used as a general source of ID by corporations.
From an outside point of view, the US system looks crazy. And that's coming from somebody who's country has a TV license.
So they can permanently mark you as a poor when you miss a single monthly payment thus effecting your ability to do anything with money in the future making you poorer and perpetuating a cycle in order to trap you into a system that benefits from your suffering.
Or even better, my experience with them - they can permanently mark you as poor when the person who stole your identity in the last data beach (Thanks Experian!) doesn't make their monthly payment, thus tanking your credit while you're entering escrow on your first home.
Thanks AT&T, now my stolen information I never even gave you is probably back on the black market! The cycle continues.
Because people finance their phones with AT&T, usually without realizing it. "Free" phones and discounted phones are not usually free or discounted. You're forced to stay with them to get the discount off each month. I hate it because I'd rather just pay for my phone outright and be done, but then you actually pay more.
That is very likely already the case, let’s be serious here. Our companies, especially the ones with really firm mono- or duopolies, give absolutely no fucks about protecting citizen data, they just have insurance to cover the damages.
This is a bit off topic and obviously bullshit, but I do recommend the social monitoring service, as well as freezing your credit. No real reason not to. I see freezing your credit as like setting a simple 2fa for your credit. You can unfreeze it at any time for free, and that extra bit of inconvenience of having to unfreeze it can stop impulse credit card sign ups. Also I have a "world class" Mastercard, but they also have free credit monitoring that I recommend. I think Visa might have something similar, but I'm not entirely sure.
Yeah even if it's not needed I personally don't see any reason why you wouldn't want to keep your credit frozen. I see it as like 2fa for your credit score.