The Federal Trade Commission is warning of scam phone calls that claim to be from Equifax, asking for account information after a massive data breach.

It's a fact of life these days that whenever there's a disaster or large-scale economic event, crooks will try to capitalize through scam phone calls. It's happened in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey , with scammers claiming to be collecting money for hurricane relief. And now, they've jumped on the massive data breach at credit reporting agency Equifax.

The FTC says scammers are calling people out of the blue, claiming to be from Equifax, and asking for account information including social security numbers, birth dates, and more. Equifax officials want to make sure people know that the credit agency will not initiate calls to ask for such personal information and that folks can't trust the caller I.D. even if it says the call is from the Equifax. Caller I.D. phone numbers can be faked or 'spoofed' very easily.

Anyone receiving one of these calls should hang up immediately and report it to the FTC. And officials suggest that Mainers may want to freeze their credit temporarily so impostors won't have access to it. Freezing credit can be done easily by calling all three credit reporting agencies, who will then send out a pin so the account can be unfrozen at any time. Call Experian at 888-397-3742, Equifax at 800-349-9960, and Transunion at 888-909-8872.

 

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