What happened to Equifax today

Today was a terrible day for the 143 million consumers impacted by the Equifax data breach. Many of these folks had Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver's license numbers compromised. And the credit card information for hundreds of thousands more was put at risk. Though it was uncovered by the company a little over a month ago, Equifax held off from announcing the extent of the damage until today.

Unfortunately, even with a month of preparation, the post-leak experience for worried consumers was less than ideal. When folks rushed to the site Equifax dedicated to handling inquiries, they were met with nothing more than essentially an ad for Equifax's own credit monitoring service. And to make matters worse, the service itself isn't actually even available today as of this time.

One of our writers even went as far as to call Equifax three times to find out if any of her information was leaked. After waiting each time, every call ended in a disconnect.