Experian Should Reissue New Credit Freeze PINs Immediately

Media Contacts
Mike Litt

Director, Consumer Campaign, U.S. PIRG Education Fund

U.S. PIRG

Statement by Mike Litt, U.S. PIRG Consumer Campaign Director, on news about Experian’s faulty credit freeze PIN retrieval form.

“After reading a Nerdwallet news alert about Experian’s faulty credit freeze PIN retrieval form, I tried it out for myself around 4:40 pm EST. I, too, was able to retrieve my PIN by selecting “none of the above” for security questions even though the answer was in the list of options. This means that even if you had taken the step to freeze your Experian credit report, an identity thief could have unfrozen it and stil tried to open a credit account in your name.

There is absolutely no excuse for this. How do you just leave the keys to the door on top of the welcome mat?

The credit bureaus make money off of our information but can’t even protect access to it? Not even after the worst data breach in history? It’s like they didn’t learn anything. And they will continue to not learn anything or take our data security seriously unless there are financial penalties for such carelessness.

First, Experian must fix this flaw immediately and reissue new PINs. Even if they fix it, the Federal Trade Commission should investigate how long the flaw was in place and impose penalties immediately.”

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U.S. PIRG is the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups. PIRGs are non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organizations that stand up to powerful interests whenever they threaten our health and safety, our financial security, or our right to fully participate in our democratic society. On the web at www.uspirg.org.

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