2.22.18
Suggested lead:
Lawmakers in Olympia said yes
Thursday to a consumer-protection bill designed to save money for hacking
victims. Dan Frizzell has more.
Wrap (:75 total):
When the credit-reporting giant Equifax was repeatedly hacked last year, 145
million consumers learned that their personal financial data had fallen into the
hands of potential identity thieves. The advice everyone heard was to put a
freeze on their credit with the big three credit bureaus.
But consumers in Washington got a nasty surprise: State law allowed
Equifax and the others to charge a ten-dollar fee to freeze their credit . . .
and another ten to remove the freeze. That’s sixty dollars a head for something
no one wanted and that wasn’t their fault.
Lawmakers in Olympia said “no more,” and put the final OK Thursday on a
bill making those fees illegal. Here’s
Representative Kristine Reeves, the Federal Way Democrat who spoke in favor of
the bill on the House floor.
REEVES: “You shouldn’t have
to pay more to protect yourself and your credit when one of those three bureaus
loses your consumer information. You shouldn’t have to pay ten dollars so that
hackers in Russia don’t open up six different credit cards in your name.
This legislation is about doing what’s right for our constituents, for
consumers.” [:22]
Even with more than a dozen Republican lawmakers voting no,
the bill passed handily and is expected to be signed into law by Governor Jay
Inslee in the coming days. In
Olympia, I’m Dan Frizzell.