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Equifax to launch a free lifetime credit lock service
Equifax's new chief knows it'll take a lot of effort to make people trust the credit reporting agency again. He started by penning a letter of apology published by The Wall Street Journal, wherein he admitted that the company wasn't able to live up to people's expectations. Equifax was hacked, he wrote -- its website "did not function as it should have," and its "call center couldn't manage the volume of calls" the company received after the security breach was made public. The interim CEO has also revealed that Equifax will launch a new service on January 31st that will give you the power to lock and unlock your credit anytime. Best thing about the offer? It will be free for life to all its customers in the US.
Apple tops satisfaction survey for 8th year
For the eighth year in a row, Apple has come out on top of the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Additionally, no other company got close to touching Apple. In the 2011 survey, Apple earned the ACSI's highest score ever, with 87 out of a possible 100 points. That's one point higher than last year and nine points higher than Apple's closest rival in the survey, HP, which scored a 78 (which is also the PC industry average in the ACSI survey). The last time Apple missed the top spot was in 2003, when Dell held a one-point margin. The ACSI conducts over 70,000 interviews to gather its results on over 225 companies and 200 federal or local government services. ACSI then breaks down the results into 10 economic sectors and 47 industries awarding scores of 0 to 100, which measure consumer feelings and customer satisfaction towards companies and products. In a statement, ACSI founder Claes Fornell summed up Apple's performance which keeps it at the top of the ACSI: "In the eight years that Apple has led the PC industry in customer satisfaction, its stock price has increased by 2,300 percent. Apple's winning combination of innovation and product diversification--including spinning off technologies into entirely new directions--has kept the company consistently at the leading edge." [via Cnet]
