Have read that as of yesterday, Equifax stopped charging folks for putting in a credit freeze. I will wait to see whether they waive the charge they assessed against my CC for my and H’s freeze. In any case, I sleep better knowing I’ve done what I can, even if it’s futile, as @MomofWildChild says. It feels better to do SOMETHING, and maybe it will make the bad guys go for easier targets and leave me and H alone. 
Didn’t Equifax get sold to the French several years ago - I think all 3 major credit unions are not American owned…foreign companies own our personal financial information.
Equifax did not charge me for the freeze.
If your over 65 the freezes are free. My 92 year old mom was not charged by any of the three agencies.
Laws on charges for freezes are by state and can range from free to over $10 apiece per credit agency.
Well, I think I got that wrong - this is what I was remembering: https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/02/18/daily30.html however, this doesn’t make me feel any better - all these companies are so intertwined - everybody seems to have all our informaton. We froze our credit a long time ago and I just had my college son freeze his (he finally had a credit score!) but I haven’t convinced my 30 year old to do so yet - i really wish he would…makes me nervous.
I just checked the card we charged our freezes on. Transunion has indeed charged us $5 apiece. Neither the charge from Equifax nor Experian have gone through at this time, so perhaps they’re NOT going to charge us? Who knows? I just feel like trying to do SOMETHING to perhaps slightly lessen my chances and H’s of being a victim makes me feel better.
senators are asking
Before its massive data breach, Equifax fought to kill a rule allowing victims to sue
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-equifax-arbitration-20170911-story.html
DH and I had already frozen our credit at the three main credit agencies a couple of years ago after the smaller data breach at the government’s Office of Personnel Management, so I’m not planning to do anything else at the moment.
I’m sorry, but I refuse to pay the credit agencies $$ for services at this point – it’s bad enough that they mishandle data, without profiting off of the results of the mishandling.
I do have several credit monitoring systems already in place.
I froze my credit several months ago (Thought I lost my social security card) and was not charged. Must be a state law here in NC if others are being charged elsewhere. I just went to the Equifax website and used their form to see if I was affected by the data breach, and I got a virus warning from Avast!! From the Equifax website! Now what?
We are not their customers. The financial industry is. Fraud needs to reach a level that is high enough that lenders become less trustful of credit reports for there to be any incentive for the credit reporting companies to improve data security. Or legislation needs to be passed that requires credit reporting companies to assume liability for any fraud that affects any person whose information is compromised by data security failure (not likely given the big-business-friendly politicians in government now).
As the above article said Equifax waited 6 weeks to announce to the public. I think my bank account is compromised. I didn’t lose money but weird things happened with online payments in the last couple of weeks.
I decided I am not going to do anything other than the self monitoring I do regularly on our accounts.
You can sue them 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/new-website-lets-automatically-sue-equifax-click-214730288.html
Following the government webpage provided above, I just implemented a security freeze with the big three.
Is it necessary to include the two newer ones (Innovis and ChexSystems)?
Chex Systems is not new. Its primary business is to track bank account irregularities (e.g. excessive overdrafts, or use of bank accounts fraudulently) so that banks can refuse to open accounts for those with a history of such.
Bank accounts could be another place that is vulnerable to identity fraud.
I have this fantasy of going in for my next car loan/credit card/mortgage and telling the dealership/bank that I will only let them check my credit if they use TransUnion or Experian.
If everyone did that…I’m dreaming, but still.
Even better, I thought I would ask them to use Innovis. Being a young company, they may be technically savvier than the big three. From what i read Equifax made a number of dumb mistake leading to the huge breach.