PRINCETON, Illinois - For the past four days, Don Kirby has sat in front of his computer, hoping to get a different message.
"It's frustrating when I`m trying to do the right thing and they`re not enabling me to do that and it was all caused by someone who got into their system," said Kirby.
Kirby is one of the 143 million Americans whose personal information was exposed in a data breach at Equifax, one of the nation's three major credit reporting agencies.
"You feel kind of hopeless the Last thing I want is somebody opening credit in my name," said Kirby.
Kirby has logged onto Equifax's website to freeze his credit, a way to block someone from opening a new account in your name. The only problem is the website isn't working. Kirby says an error message pops up saying 'We are currently unable to service your request.'
"As a consumer, I feel like I`m hamstrung a bit," said Kirby.
When it comes to trying to get a hold of someone from Equifax, Kirby says it's just as hard. He says the number on the website doesn't work.
"This is unacceptable. If this was my business somebody would be explaining to me why that isn`t working right. That's unacceptable," said Kirby.
It's a road Kirby has been down before. He's had his identity stolen not once but twice, "The 2001 incident with us took about eight months to clear up."
Kirby is doing everything he can to prevent it from happening again.
"My wife and I have worked extremely hard to have very good credit report and credit score. Very, very proud of that, worked very hard for it, don`t want that getting messed up," said Kirby.
For now, all he can do is keep trying but if anyone knows time is a factor, it's him.
"I'm just kind of sitting here waiting and to me that`s dangerous," said Kirby.
News 8 reached out to Equifax to see if they're experiencing websites issues and what people can do in the meantime but no one returned our call.
Kirby says he will probably mail in a paper request asking for his credit to be frozen but he says that could take even longer.