Equifax Sacks 2 Executives, Turns Devious to Stop You from Demanding a Credit Freeze

They’re terrified a mass credit freeze will crush revenues.
Shares of Equifax dropped another 4% today, including after-hours, to $92.70. They’re now down 35%, or $50, from the happier era that ended at 5pm EST on September 7, with the confession that it had found out six weeks earlier that the most crucial personal data – ‘primarily names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers’ – of 143 million consumers had been stolen.
This was promptly followed by chaos and egregious missteps, such as trying to profit from its victims. So far, at 120.4 million shares outstanding as of June 30, the six trading days have cost investors $6 billion. No one cares about consumers. They’re just the product. But $6 billion matter.
Now heads are rolling. Oh no, not CEO Richard Smith. He is not leaving the company to spend more time with his family. Instead, Equifax announcedFriday evening that it sacked two lower level executives. I mean, not sacked. Chief information officer, David Webb, and chief security officer, Susan Mauldin, ‘are retiring,’ it said, ‘effective immediately.’
And they had it coming.

This post was published at Wolf Street by Wolf Richter ‘ Sep 15, 2017.