Remember those $50 cellphone provider shops....

...where you had to get some pricing information, which involved a credit check. Well, I just received a notification from Experian that the information I gave to T-Mobile was hacked. Why on earth Experian would keep that information in its records is beyond me.

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Experian had nothing to do with those shops. There was no reason for then to know it was a mystery shop so no reason to remove the information. That was one of the (many) perils of the shops.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

Right, but if I am regular customer, and T-Mobile sends them my SS # and DOB, etc., in order to get a credit check on me, why is Experian keeping that information after they give T-Mobile the answer.

They always keep that information. How else do they know who's credit report to put the credit inquiry on?

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I see. It just seemed strange to me that it was info associated with T-Mobile specifically, not that my overall info at Experian was hacked. Live and learn. Thanks!

Then perhaps the data breach was with T-Mobile and they notified Experian that the data was compromised? I'm not sure exactly? I thought you were saying there was a data break at Experian. I think I'm confused.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I am, too!

The letter began:

I am writing to let you know of an incident that occurred involving T-Mobile USA data housed at Experian that may have involved an unauthorized disclosure of your personal information.

...we discovered that an unauthorized party accessed certain Experian servers.

...we notified T-Mobile USA that information that Experian maintains on their behalf to perform credit checks had been downloaded by the unauthorized party. Information you provided when you applied for an account at T-Mobile likely was acquired.

This was pretty big news where I live. T-Mobile was hacked. I am not a customer so I don't know to what level and what information the criminals received.

Ah, that makes much more sense. I would guess from reading that, that T-Mobile uses a product from Experian where the credit approval process happens entirely on Experian servers and not within T-Mobile's system or T-Mobile uses a data warehousing solution from Experian, where the data is theirs, and it is on dedicated servers, but they are housed at Experian and not T-Mobile.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

The big M has one right now, but you have to purchase a phone and (non-prepaid) service. 'Passed on that one!

I received that letter too. It sounds to me like exactly what bgriffin said.
They also go on to offer two years of identity theft protection for free in case my data was compromised.

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Remember those $50 cellphone provider shops....

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