If You Asked Equifax For $125, You Need To Update Your Request (theverge.com) 56
If you requested money from Equifax for leaking your personal data, you'll need to provide more information by October 15th. From a report: The Equifax settlement administrator sent an email with details over the weekend. It asks consumers to confirm that they're actually signed up for credit monitoring, which is a prerequisite for requesting the money. If they can't do that, they can amend their claim to request free credit monitoring. Otherwise, the claim will be denied. Equifax settled with the Federal Trade Commission for up to $700 million in July, and it set aside $31 million for consumers who were affected by the breach. Consumers could request four years of monitoring or a $125 check. But because the total payout was fixed, the FTC soon warned that people would receive far less money.
No need to work hard (Score:3)
I already have free credit monitoring from the 2 other agencies, from multiple sources each, thanks to a number of high profile security breaches (that all resulted in credit monitoring service being offered).
I am guessing most of the other Equifax victims have the same as well.
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I already have free credit monitoring from the 2 other agencies, from multiple sources each, thanks to a number of high profile security breaches (that all resulted in credit monitoring service being offered).
I am guessing most of the other Equifax victims have the same as well.
Yeah, I already had credit monitoring, but I figured the $125 was too good to be true and no way there would be enough money to give everyone $125- so I went with Credit Monitoring.
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The cost of postage to send everyone a 1 cent check is still more damaging than their actual costs to pay one of the other credit reporting agencies to do monitoring.
It's a trap! [It = the settlement] (Score:2)
I already have free credit monitoring from the 2 other agencies, from multiple sources each, thanks to a number of high profile security breaches (that all resulted in credit monitoring service being offered).
I am guessing most of the other Equifax victims have the same as well.
Yeah, I already had credit monitoring, but I figured the $125 was too good to be true and no way there would be enough money to give everyone $125- so I went with Credit Monitoring.
I'm missing the joke here. Was this modded funny because you didn't want the money?
Anyway, I smell a rat here. I think Equifax is trying to turn their crime into a profit. I got email from Equifax that seemed to say I was entitled to free credit monitoring because of this settlement, but when I checked the link, it then claimed that my data was NOT any part of the leak. Looking more closely, it appeared they were just offering me a free trial of their credit monitoring scam. Followed by my convenient paymen
Re:Sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs (Score:2)
It's Shannon Jacobs' data, but it's not your body. He'll reach out and touch you without consent. #metoo
Public masturbation of 946416 (Score:2)
Z^-1
Re:Sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs (Score:2)
Why should we give Shannon Jacobs ownership of "his data" when he can't respect ownership of others' personal space? #metoo
Public masturbation of 946416 (Score:2)
Z^-2
Re:Sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs (Score:2)
It was 6:24 am. Time for Shannon Jacobs to commit a sexual assault on Slashdot. Because real life is scary.
Public masturbation of 946419 (Score:2)
X^-3
It's not about "me" getting $125 (Score:3)
It's about Equifax spending as much on this as they physical can.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
unless you signed up for credit monitoring it doesn't sound like they are going to pay you anything, they might provide the service for free for a year which probably costs them a lot less than that 125... Id say im shocked at this turn of events but I'm really not. They should have been fined out of existence for this but here we are....
Re:It's not about "me" getting $125 (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it "costs" them nothing at all.
Costs them something (Score:3)
Actually it "costs" them nothing at all.
If I have to enter the name of a credit monitoring agency and they have to check that, it does cost them something, even if slight.
In the end if you jump through the hoops they will have to send you something. There may even be few enough people that respond to the email, you would get something more than $10.
I still feel like at least you are wasting time filing the claims so that is something, as long as not too much of your own time is wasted.
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I agree don't let the Equifax corporate trolls talk you out of filing your claim.
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That's what it's about for me too. I want them to lose as much money as possible over this I don't care if 99.9% goes to lawyers.
Does creditkarma count ? (Score:2)
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Any language in the TOU fine print to the effect that enrolling in this service constitutes any sort of contractual agreement limiting the liability of Credit Karma, its partners or parent companies?
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Lastpass does too.
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I was wondering about that as well. It wouldn't surprise me if they considered CreditKarma an unacceptable substitute for the settlement, as it's a free service.
Even if it is accepted, we'll probably all get settlement checks for around $4.87 while the law firm who filed the Class Action against Equifax makes millions in legal fees. I guess that's how "justice" in America works now.
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I was wondering about that as well. It wouldn't surprise me if they considered CreditKarma an unacceptable substitute for the settlement, as it's a free service.
Even if it is accepted, we'll probably all get settlement checks for around $4.87 while the law firm who filed the Class Action against Equifax makes millions in legal fees. I guess that's how "justice" in America works now.
Well don't forget, it's *up to* $125. It depends on how many people try to claim the $125. It's like the scene in Bruce Almighty where he grants everyone's prayers and thousands of people win the lottery so they only get like $5 each.
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Yeah... I figure that this stunt to make people "confirm" their claim will probably reduce the number of claimants from 30 million to about 6 million. Divide the $31 million dollar settlement pool between those people, and my settlement check estimate is pretty close to being spot on.
Re:Does creditkarma count ? (Score:4, Interesting)
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"I don't understand why they weren't required to put $125 X number of claimants into an escrow account to cover claimants."
Because that is more than the market cap of Equifax. They would literally have to liquidate the company to pay for it.
And I'm okay with that.
Equifax should just be a Wikipedia entry now (Score:5, Insightful)
I figure giving everyone's data away just helps business.
They should have had their business licenses revoked with no provision to sell data assets (which were already in the wild), only destroy.
Valuation: Over $17 billion
Revenues annual: Over $3 billion
Settlement: $800 million
Politician's pockets: Probably close to $100 million.
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Valuation and revenue aren't spendable. Imagine if we looked at your salary and said, "Huh, you have $50,000/year. That means you can afford a $20,000 settlement on this lawsuit, which is fair, even though it's not quite the damages," and you said, "But wait! I have to spend $40,000 on food and mortgage and such to live, and I pay $8,000 in taxes! I only have $2,000!"
Then they said, "Well you're worth $80,000 though, so just pay that," and you're like, "But that's my car and my house! I can't spend
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I'm OK with them selling off hard assets to fund this. Why shouldn't they have to sell off hard assets to pay up?
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Because that may disrupt the business and prove economically costly, ultimately having its primary impact on the ten thousand employees and the consumers.
Businesses collapse. No need to drive them to collapse unnecessarily, only to be replaced by the inexperienced.
A better resolution would be technical measure regulation: pass law that the CFPB shall work with NIST to identify consumer-ready (i.e. cheap) and effective technology to protect from identity theft. Imagine if you walked into a bank, showed
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"Cost of identity theft: $16 billion - $25 billion per year."
Identity theft does not exist. The actual crime committed is called "impersonation". It is committed against a third-party who makes a "mistake" of fact in reliance of the fraudulent representation. It does not have anything to do with you as you were not involved at all.
The third-parties, however, in order to protect themselves from the consequences of their own criminal actions (such as extortion) and torts against you, "rename" the original
Re: Equifax should just be a Wikipedia entry now (Score:1)
Nobody âstole your identityâ(TM), the company gave something of value to someone who isnâ(TM)t you, and they want to make it your problem instead of theirs.
It was their responsibility to verify that the person was you, you were not a party to the transaction. Companies arenâ(TM)t about to Tatar taking responsibility for your mistakes, why do you take responsibility for theirs ... purchasing debt âmonitoringâ(TM) to prevent them from making mistakes?
Itâ(TM)s ha
Re: Equifax should just be a Wikipedia entry now (Score:2)
They should have had their business licenses revoked ...
Why bother? They already screwed everyone. Now, they are screwing everyone again with the false promise of financial payments. No matter how you look at it, they win. The only justice is for total expungement of everyones records and the dismantling of the "credit scoring system" and the return to a precious metal backed currency along with an audit of the Fed prior to its dismantling. Then and only then will justice be served.
Thank-you FTC (Score:2)
... FTC soon warned that people would receive far less money. ...
Thank-you FTC for making it easy for Equifax to get off without paying a proper amount to those victims of its data leaks.
Is that cynical? (Score:2)
A company that screwed over its users is demanding more information from them so these injured can get compensated for Equifax' blunder.
I'm not a native speaker, but is this what's meant with "adding insult to injury"?
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I'm not a native speaker, but is this what's meant with "adding insult to injury"?
This would definitely qualify.
Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
They got off with a slap on the wrist and they're even trying to weasel out of that.
Honestly, they should just be shut down. Thanks to their own leak, the information they report is intrinsically unreliable (that is, gossip) anyway. Just take them behind the barn and get it over with.
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Just take them behind the barn and get it over with.
Old Yeller, or just a paddling? I vote the former.
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Certainly Old Yeller.
Interesting ... (Score:2)
So why would one enter into a contractual relationship with an entity that has proven themselves to be untrustworthy? If you do not enter into a contractual relationship with them and are "damaged" by that third-party they are liable for the damage they cause. However, if you enter into a contract with them, then your damages are restricted by the terms of the contract.
Obviously it is to the best advantage of Equifax for everyone to enter into a contract with them thus limiting their liability for future
I want them to pay. (Score:2)
Re:I want them to pay. (Score:5, Interesting)
They could probably provide credit monitoring for the entire country for the $31 million set aside for cash payments ...
The "free credit monitoring" they're offering isn't costing them anything at all, since they're already tracking the credit information of pretty much everyone (which is obvious since they were able to *expose* just about everyone's data in the first place).
You know what I'd take as a replacement for that $125? The right to opt out of Equifax' data sets completely, forever.
Equifax needs to protect data before collecting it (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee. More credit monitoring (Score:1)
I'm still getting credit monitoring from the last big data breach. So I'll get double for a while and then when the next one happens I'll get double again. At this point every credit agency should be required to provide free credit monitoring to everyone.
I'm disappointed in the monetary verdict. Rather than capping it at a dollar amount if possible it would have been far more of a punishment for them to pay out everyone who had their data compromised a fixed amount and then more for those who had proof of h
I opted out of the settlement online (Score:2)
Again, I keep saying this, but this is what 40+ years of pro corporate, small government politics buys you. Want fewer regulations? Congrats, you got them, and all that entails.
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It really has nothing to do with small-government. The real issue is that when the FTC workers "retire" from the FTC (with pension of course), they go to work for places like Equifax. So they aren't going to unduly harm their future employers.
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You can only claim the $125 if you have some kind of material harm. And even then the harm has to be equal to $125.
Meanwhile they become blameless for any and all damage to my person or credit for the breach.
It's a terrible deal and if we didn't have complete regulatory capture it would have been shut down by the judge.
But on the other hand, retaining the ability to hold them responsible only has any value if you intend to use that in court.
I see that as requiring
a) Some kind of material harm significantly more than $125,
b) "Significantly more" being a value that is worth the $10k-$50k in lawyer fees you need to pay to reclaim it, and
c) be willing to deal with filing suit against them.
So if the harm done to you adds up enough so all those are true, then yes it would be stupid to settle in the class action.
But far more of
I opted out (Score:1)
I opted out of the settlement and will be suing Equifax myself. The settlement is a freaking joke anyway and is not punitive at all. The class is not made whole by free credit monitoring or a paltry sum, while the perpetrators of this crime get to keep their multi-million dollar jobs.
Is this worth the effort? (Score:2)
Why do I need credit monitoring (Score:2)
After the breach I froze my credit with all three credit agencies. The work involved in doing that is what I want compensation for!
I have a simple question (Score:4, Insightful)
Opt-out of the settlement! (Score:1)
I did this.
You donâ(TM)t have to be bound by any of this.