{"id":13206,"date":"2017-10-03T15:19:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T23:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/equifax-and-wells-fargo-apologize-to-congress-lawmakers-not-buying-it\/"},"modified":"2017-10-03T15:19:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T23:19:00","slug":"equifax-and-wells-fargo-apologize-to-congress-lawmakers-not-buying-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/equifax-and-wells-fargo-apologize-to-congress-lawmakers-not-buying-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Equifax And Wells Fargo Apologize To Congress; Lawmakers Not Buying It"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marilyn Geewax<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Former Equifax CEO Richard Smith testifies about the company’s massive data breach before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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When corporate chief executives appear before Congress, they come braced for battle, but hope for gentle treatment.<\/p>\n

Tender handling is not what they got on Tuesday. Not from Republicans. Not from Democrats.<\/p>\n

Not when they were representing Wells Fargo and Equifax \u2014 two huge companies that recently have harmed Americans.<\/p>\n

“At best, you were incompetent. At worst, you were complicit. And either way you should be fired,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan.<\/p>\n

Sloan was testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, trying to explain the scandals that continue to plague his company.<\/p>\n

In another hearing at the same time, the former CEO of Equifax, Richard Smith, was telling a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee about how his company managed to expose the sensitive, private information involving more than 145 million Americans.<\/p>\n

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The scope of Equifax’s failure to protect people’s privacy was “unprecedented,” subcommittee chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, said. The breach was “also unique because of the sensitivity of the information stolen \u2014 including full nine-digit Social Security numbers,” Latta said.<\/p>\n

Smith, who stepped down last week from Equifax<\/a>, started by saying: “I’m truly and deeply sorry for what happened.”<\/p>\n

He then blamed the massive breach on two factors: “human error and technology errors.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said Congress should pass legislation to protect consumers whose personal data gets stolen in such security failures. “Of course, breaches will continue to occur, but they occur more often when there is no accountability and when no preventative measures are in place,” he said.<\/p>\n