Brown Calls on Equifax to Remove Forced Arbitration from Credit Monitoring, Following Data Breach

Source: Senator Sherrod Brown- (D - OH)

Washington, D.C. - September 8, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – is calling on Equifax to immediately remove forced arbitration from all services offered to customers following a data breach that exposed 143 million Americans to identify theft. Equifax is currently touting free credit monitoring and identify protection services for victims of the breach through its TrustedID product. However, Equifax included forced arbitration clauses in the terms of use agreement customers must agree to when signing up for the services – effectively forcing victims of the breach to sign away their rights to seek access to court.

“It’s shameful that Equifax would take advantage of victims by forcing people to sign over their rights in order to get credit monitoring services they wouldn’t even need if Equifax hadn’t put them at risk in the first place. If Equifax is genuine about wanting to protect customers, it must remove forced arbitration immediately from TrustedID and any other services offered to victims of the data breach,” Brown said. “This is just one more example why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule banning forced arbitration is badly needed to protect the rights of working Americans.”

Many victims of the Equifax breach were likely enrolled through their credit card company or another third-party credit provider, and may not even know they are customers of Equifax.

Brown is cautioning victims of the breach to carefully read all fine print before signing up for TrustedID or other Equifax products.

The arbitration clauses contained in Equifax’s terms of use agreement to TrustedID are highlighted below. The complete agreement is available here.