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Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125
- CaliforniaKarl 7y agohttp://archive.is/HWdcR http://archive.is/HWdcR
- CaliforniaKarl 7y agotl;dr: For those who applied for the $125 payout option in the Equifax data breach settlement, you should've gotten an email requiring that you provide more information by October 15, or that your claim would be denied. The FTC confirms it's legit: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/equifax-data-breach-settlement#FAQ4 https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/eq... (FAQ 4 item 2) The article's author says Gmail filed it into the 'Promotions' folder.
- ewoodrich 7y agoFWIW the Equifax email didn't go to Promotions for me, it was in the regular Gmail inbox, and marked "Important".
- koboll 7y agoThe information required is only a single input where you type the name of your credit monitoring service, and affirm you will continue to use it for at least 6 months. Not a high bar to clear. Mint.com offers credit monitoring for free, as do a number of credit cards.
- ulkesh 7y agoI received no such email and I signed up fairly quickly for the $125. I've checked my spam folder as well as everywhere else, they simply haven't sent me such an email.
- keehun 7y agoI also haven't gotten anything from them, yet!
- Fishkins 7y agoNeither did I. Does anyone know what to do in this case? I have my Equifax claim code.
- CaliforniaKarl 7y agoGo to the claim web site and choose to 'Modify/Amend Your Claim'. There should be a place now for you to specify which credit-monitoring service you are using.
- ulkesh 7y agoUnfortunately I have no such claim code. I also don't remember receiving one and there was never a confirmation email sent. If there was one on the screen, I regret not saving it. It's sad and frustrating the lengths they are going to, to make sure they pay so very little for screwing so many people.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago> The article's author says Gmail filed it into the 'Promotions' folder. Yeah, but they have to contact people by email because they don't have anyone's physical home address.
- nareshmaloth 7y agohttps://tutorbin.com/tutor/ https://tutorbin.com/tutor/
- tracer4201 7y agoIs Equifax actually liable or responsible for anything? No jail time or other penalties for executives. Okay so how are they held accountable?
- ummonk 7y agoJail time for executives seems a little excessive for some employee merely failing to apply a security patch... On the other hand, this settlement shouldn't have been capped at such a ridiculously low amount.
- 29athrowaway 7y ago> merely failing to apply a security patch ...and leaking information about every working age adult in the US. And having a music major as chief security officer. And having sensitive data stored as plaintext. Their entire business is about managing information. They failed to do the only thing they are supposed to do.
- jakobegger 7y ago> Jail time for executives seems a little excessive for some employee merely failing to apply a security patch... No, it's not. If you collect personal information of almost 150 million people, you have to take measures to protect that data. If you fail to do that, you can't just say "oops, I didn't mean that"...
- tiborsaas 7y agoApparently you can totally just say whoopsie. A bit backslash here, some penalties over there and it's fine, the sun comes up next day morning the same.
- tamrix 7y agoThat's just what they want you to think. Really they just sold the data off on the international market.
- 7y ago
- cwkoss 7y agoIf anyone is getting a mortgage or refinancing soon, ask your lender to 'drop' equifax without running your score with them - just take the score from the other two. Equifax is an unnecessary security and privacy risk. They are a horrible company that needs to go out of business. Make their customers feel embarrassed to be doing business with them.
- noodlesUK 7y agoDoes this actually work? Do bank employees have any control of the credit check process?
- cwkoss 7y agoMy lender always drops the lowest of the three scores, so I was able to just say "I'm going to keep looking at other lenders if you contact Equifax on my behalf. Can you agree to not use Equifax on this deal if I agree move forward today?" and it wasn't a problem. Some of the larger lenders may not have this flexibility.
- pentae 7y agoSounds pretty suspicious. Like you have a really bad credit score on Equifax compared to the other two
- jacobush 7y agoI guess Equifax has a low enough rep that it is less suspicious than for any other
- bogle 7y agoIn which case the Equifax score would have been dropped anyway. So the lender isn't in any worse position.
- rolltiide 7y agolol “suspicious”, as if it matters you realize you can say the wildest most unsophisticated things and they’ll just punch the numbers into a machine and get a “lend to this guy or not” result either way right?
- DATACOMMANDER 7y agoThis is the sort of thing that millennials should focus our energy on. We may be politically polarized, but I think we can all agree that this is bullshit and needs to be fought.
- ummonk 7y agoI'm definitely going to write a letter objecting to the settlement, and will urge everyone I know to do so as well.
- koboll 7y agoTo what? The Trump-controlled FTC? The castrated CFPB that now spends its time promoting a partnership with the most medieval red states called the "Financial Innovation Network" (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bureau-state-regulators-launch-american-consumer-financial-innovation-network/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bureau-sta...)? Where do you think that's going to get you?
- hyperbovine 7y agoTo the court. RTFA please.
- exabrial 7y agoOrange man bad. You're right.
- Wheaties466 7y agoI don't remember where I saw this, but I do remember reading that if you are going to object you cannot object to the settlement amount, just the settlement in general. And reasoning for the objection cannot be monetary.
- hamilyon2 7y agoI don't understand it. Here is hn, where everyone knows that cybersecurity is 100% offence 0% defence. It is basically our job to secure systems and we all agree it is pretty much impossible, unless you airgap every computer in building and glue every USB port. Then, knowing that, we blame equifax for data breach. Equifax is fat target and it was matter of time data would be stolen.
- fastball 7y agoEquifax's security practices were laughably bad.
- Angostura 7y ago> we all agree it is pretty much impossible, unless.... ... well, not waiting months to patch a vulnerability in a well-known piece of software us probably a start.
- kalleboo 7y agoI agree with you, but if you can't secure the data, you shouldn't collect it in the first place. Not collecting data to begin with is a big part of the GDPR.
- deaps 7y agoThe fact remains that when not following 'best practices' - you leave yourself (and those that you horde data on) at risk. I think that the upsetting part is that most don't volunteer their data to these guys. They simply get spoon-fed our data, profit greatly from our data, and then grossly mishandle that data, failing to follow even simple security best practices throughout.
- raesene9 7y agoSecurity is not binary. It's possible to do a good job on preventative measures, and implement detective and reactive controls to help if/when a breach occurs. It's just expensive, so companies who haven't been breached yet often don't prioritize that kind of work.
- mlrtime 7y ago
- rundmc 7y agoIn an ideal world, a white-hat would write a script that uses all of the hacked data to apply for the settlement on behalf of the hacked users so that the affected users don't have to individually work out how to hack Equifax's claims process.
- Traster 7y agoYou're missing the point. There is no hack. You can claim, but in order to claim you need to provide evidence you have credit monitoring. So in order to get 31 cents from equifax you need to prove that you're using an expensive useless service that is either provided by equifax or one of their equally useless competitors. The hacking was done in court.
- sokoloff 7y agoCreditkarma is free. Several credit cards/banks also offer free/bundled credit monitoring.
- shawnz 7y agoWhy should it be my responsibility to monitor their services in the first place? Even if you do get free credit monitoring it's just yet another technique to shift blame on to the customer
- fuzz4lyfe 7y agoIt really is insane that people buy these services. Do you hire a security guard to stand in front of the bank as well?
- deepsun 7y agoLenders don't look at credit karma, so they are useless, can show you any number you like.
- sokoloff 7y ago
- mnm1 7y agoI have credit monitoring but signed up for it from this settlement anyway. I doubt anyone will see anymore than a couple of bucks from this. It's a scam and they got away with it. That's what happens when your government cares more about corporate profits than people. None of the things here will do anything to change that short of pursuing your own case against them which will definitely cost more than $125, not to mention time and effort. The bad guys just won. As usual.
- harryh 7y agoThe title of this post (which, admittedly, was taken from the NYTimes) isn't really correct. The terms of the settlement have been set. Equifax's financial outlay is fixed. All of the post settlement divvying up of the funds is being administered by the government bodies who negotiated the settlement, not Equifax. Equifax's desires about how the money gets divvied up at this point are irrelevant.
- aloknnikhil 7y agoYou're right. The title is not very accurate. The text from the Equifax Settlement Administrator > Your Equifax Claim: You Must Act by October 15, 2019 or Your Claim for Alternative Compensation Will Be Denied. The amount you receive in connection with your alternative compensation claim may be significantly reduced depending on how many valid claims are ultimately submitted by other class members for this relief. Based on the number of potentially valid claims that have been submitted to date, payments of these benefits likely will be substantially lowered and will be distributed on a proportional basis if the settlement becomes final. Depending on the number of valid claims that are filed, the amount you receive for alternative compensation may be a small percentage of your initial claim. That text was just them fear mongering. Even the FTC urged to opt for the credit monitoring instead through more fear inducing statements. > You can still choose the cash option on the claim form, but you will be disappointed with the amount you receive and you won’t get the free credit monitoring. > https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/equifax-data-breach-settlement https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/eq... But, if this is how the whole process is "administered", then I guess you might as well not have any hopes of seeing the compensation. EDIT: Corrected to identify the authority of the email correctly.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- harryh 7y agoEquifax didn't send you that email. If you read further down in the e-mail it even says "This email is from the Court-appointed settlement administrator, not Equifax."
- williesleg 7y agoNytimes? Really?
- exabrial 7y agoEveryone needs to realize that the whole "fine" was just an inside deal. Who do you think provides credit monitoring services? That's right, credit bureaus. That's why the they're pushing everyone to take the "free credit monitoring", so they recover the loss from the fine. If they were to pay all 140 million people $125, the sum would be $17b or so, which is an appropriate fine.
- situational87 7y agoYou're right, $17B (or more, or dissolving the company) would start to actually spark off some real change in attitudes towards infosec among executives, instead of just continuing the status quo with this non-enforcement action. The strangest part of this ordeal was when that guy from the FTC was encouraging consumers to take the monitoring on Equifax's request. They're not even pretending to be regulated anymore, they just come out and tell the government what to say. The senate report on this hack goes into lots of technical detail, savaging Equifax for their gross incompetence and negligence beat by beat: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20Equifax%20Report.pdf https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20Equifax%2... Despite all this provable negligence and incompetence all laid out in writing for everyone to see they still suffered zero real consequences. This is going to keep happening over and over and over again until we decide it's unacceptable.
- jjeaff 7y agoI actually don't think taking the monitoring is a bad idea. The $125 will not amount to much and he knew that. The monitoring does include some type of identity theft insurance I believe which could actually end up costing Equifax a lot more. Since the settlement amount was fixed, I don't see any reason the the ftc to encourage not taking it for the wrong reasons.
- undersuit 7y agoThe insurance has to be some kind of joke, they lost the data. The thing they were insuring against has already happened.
- icedchai 7y agoWe're all going to wind up with closer to $1.25. Wow. Thanks for the bean burrito.
- phyzome 7y agoAre we "consumers" now, rather than "victims" or "citizens"? Are we defined by what we buy?
- msla 7y ago> Are we "consumers" now, rather than "victims" or "citizens"? Are you a child, a parent, a sibling, or a citizen? Or are you all of those things depending on context? I get what you're saying, but you chose a way of expressing it which invites immediate response.
- phyzome 7y agoFraming matters. The headline author chose what they thought would be the most salient feature of the class of affected people—or it was chosen for them, by precedent. And I take issue with the idea that we are in any meaningful way "consumers" of Equifax (one interpretation) or that we are best described in an offhand way as taking a passive role in society (another interpretation). Even if the latter is often true, it's something to struggle against, not accept as The Way of Things.
- atwebb 7y agoThey were saying that in this context it should say victims. Saying consumers changes the way it is read. Following your logic try this one: Equifax doesn't want children to get their $125 It reads differently.
- entropea 7y ago>Are we "consumers" now, rather than "victims" or "citizens"? Yes. https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/ https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy...
- ipython 7y agoThank you... words matter... "unwitting victims" would be more like it. Or perhaps "American citizens". As your rhetorical question points out, we are not defined by what we buy. I did not directly provide my personally identifying information to Equifax, yet they held (and continue to hold) it and disclosed it en masse through their organization's technical incompetence. I did not "consume" anything from Equifax, and yet, that is the default word that every newspaper writer reaches for whenever they need to refer to a class of people affected by any economic activity. "Consumer" implies passivity, and in my opinion, leads to a mass culture of learned helplessness and anxiety/depression by implying our only value is our position on the hedonic treadmill. Hyperbolic? Perhaps, but why not choose a different word?
- argd678 7y agoIt seems like companies only get the message when there’s jail time involved. None of the companies would freeze my credit since their web sites said some unspecified value couldn’t be verified for me, despite confirming my data was indeed lost. Pretty sure, like other regulations that include jail time, this wouldn’t have happened or their website to freeze my credit would have worked.
- 99052882514569 7y agoI agree. Until someone's ass is on the line, and I mean in terms of prison time and not merely their job, the rational thing to do for a shitty company that never cared for its customers is to continue with that approach.
- kls 7y agoOf note, you and I are not the customers of Equifax, we are the product they are selling.
- fennecfoxen 7y agoToo rhetorical, and not informative. Forecasts of whether you'll make good on a promise to pay money are the product they're selling.
- PonderousBug 7y agoSeriously!
- kls 7y agoJust wanted to make the distinction that we are not the customer therefore, expectation to be treated as a customer are not going to be met. I was highlighting the frame of thinking and context that one should be using when thinking about their relationship with such entities. I could have delved deeper and specified that it is actually aggregate data, about us that is the actual product. My main point (which granted I could have been more clear on), was to emphasis that expectations will not be met if one thinks of themselves as a customer to a credit reporting agency. That is unless they work as an agent of an entity extending credit to consumers. It was not my intention to be rhetorical nor to cast moral judgment, rather just to highlight that the relationship is different than that of a customer/business relationship.
- auiya 7y agoThis whole process is a joke. I went and dug up my claim number, entered it into the site to amend, and the site just dies and doesn't allow me to proceed any further. If they had my contact info to begin with, just cut me a check and skip the shenanigans.
- zer0faith 7y agoWe really need accountability for stake holders who discount security concerns because some cool widget "adds value" and everyone else is doing it. Honestly.. send these people to jail make an example out of them.. hopefully people will think twice.
- bradleyjg 7y agoEquifax wants global peace. Class lawyers and settlement administrators want a big payday (in cash, not credit monitoring). The judge wants the case off his docket. No one represents the interests of the class. Class action lawsuits aren’t designed to further the interests of the class. They are designed to encourage ad hoc, profit driven, independent regulators. Whether this is a good idea or not is a tough question (I lean towards no) but if you aren’t clear on what the system is trying to do you will certainly find it confusing and frustrating.
- ScoJoh 7y agoDon't know if anyone posted this before, but if you scroll down to #25 here: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq You can send a letter to the Courts and let them know why you do or don't think this is a sufficient and decent settlement. Share it, let's get people writing in, because this lets Equifax keep really everything and in the end little real effect from their failure to take care of the information they were entrusted with.
- camhenlin 7y agoThanks for posting this. My wife and I already have credit monitoring so we’ve been very frustrated that it seems like Equifax will be weaseling out of paying us our $125 each. We’ll be sending a couple of letters today. Personally I’d like to see the courts rethink the settlement and force the $125 payout to everyone who requested it.
- thedanbob 7y agoI'd like to see the courts force Equifax to pay $X to everyone whose information they leaked, whether they request it or not. But this settlement doesn't seem to be about actually punishing Equifax at all or fairly recompensing those affected.
- mehrdadn 7y ago> I'd like to see the courts force Equifax to pay $X to everyone whose information they leaked, whether they request it or not. Unfortunately I'm not sure that's an option: "You can’t ask the Court to order a larger settlement; the Court can only approve or deny the settlement as it is."
- ceejayoz 7y agoDenying the settlement leaves open the possibility of a larger one. The court just can't order the subsequent negotiation have a specific result.
- ptyyy 7y agoI chose the cash option because I have credit monitoring through 2025 from the OPM breach of my SF-86 (security clearance application information) years ago. This is so idiotic. The FTC did consumers no favors in negotiating such an absolutely pitiful settlement.
- Jabbles 7y agoDid the EU manage to extract anything for Europeans that were caught up in this? I note that only US-residents are eligible for this $125.
- narcos 7y agoEquifax should go bankrupt and sell all its assets for paying the settlement. Equifax has no value and it can only create troubles to people. It should not exist.
- MisterBastahrd 7y agoEquifax should have been flat out shut down and liquidated.
- projektfu 7y agoEquifax cannot afford to pay $125 to each member of the potential class. It's way above their revenue, let alone profit. So they would go bankrupt and whatever cash is on hand would be divvied up. The credit information would presumably be sold to the highest bidder. How about the FTC instead agrees that identities cannot be stolen and puts companies on the hook for the money they lose by not verifying identity. You have an account with a bank and they give the money to a fraudster? Well, then they have to credit your account and go looking for the money. Someone opens a loan in your name? The company has to pay you for the time spent removing their garbage from the credit report and they have to go get the money back from the fraudster. Why not just remove the bite from identity theft?
- dragonwriter 7y ago> How about the FTC instead agrees that identities cannot be stolen Well, sure, if identities cannot be stolen, the whole problem is solved.
- allannienhuis 7y agoTheir ability to pay would be limited by their assets, not revenue or profit. If they've been making profit for years, they might easily have enough cash. Also, their future profits can be borrowed against to pay for a one-time expense like this. I have no idea whether they have the cash or not, I'm just pointing out that looking at their current revenue and income is not enough. :)
- pimmen 7y ago> Equifax cannot afford to pay $125 to each member of the potential class. That’s not the victims’ problem. Even if Equifax has to be completely liquidated to cover the compensation, the government should fight to make an example of such a terrible company and give the victims some sense of justice. Hopefully the board and the executives would rethink their lives and careers, maybe even change.
- scarejunba 7y agoIt becomes the victims' problem when Equifax declares bankruptcy and escapes paying.
- simplecomplex 7y agoHow do I start a credit reporting company?
- ilaksh 7y agoIt seems like we should sue Equifax for their fraudulent handling of the settlement and also the FTC for letting it through. It seems like it was such a joke that it was probably enabled by bribes or something. They should start over and aim for explicitly liquidating and redistributing all of Equifax's assets. At the same time if there were bribes or conflicts of interest at the FTC then those people involved should go to prison.
- the_watcher 7y agoSomething I've wondered always wondered when reading through class actions: do multiple class actions suits over the same set of facts ever happen? Are they possible? It seems technically possible: Class action settlement reached, somehow a huge portion of the impacted class opts out of the settlement (extremely unlikely, but possible). Opted out class members somehow organize a subsequent action. Is the above possible? By opting out, you explicitly keep your own individual right to bring action against the defendant, but does it bar class action participation? There's a moral hazard argument that allowing this would create a perverse incentive on the part of the class legal representation to encourage class members to opt out of the settlement and organize subsequent actions.
- takeda 7y agoI am not a lawyer, but to me if you signed up for class action, and you agreed that the $125 check supposed to be the payment for your damages and the other party backed off and did not provide it that means the agreement shouldn't be valid.
- the_watcher 7y agoDisclaimer: IANAL (but did go to law school and vaguely paid attention to this part so lawyers, please correct my recollections where wrong) My recollection is that, usually, only a small number of people actively sign up to the class during the lawsuit & settlement negotiation phase, and the named class is guaranteed a substantially higher payout. The settlement is worded as up to $X for the rest of the class, who can choose to accept the fact that the amount is not a guarantee or decline and keep their ability to bring a subsequent action (hence my original question of "Can you bring subsequent class action suits comprised of different subsets of the same impacted class?"). So basically, the people who actively signed up are getting a guarantee of an amount they negotiated, the rest of us are stuck deciding how valuable "up to" $125 actually is.
- PonderousBug 7y agoThis is so scummy!
- negrit 7y agoIs there a way to know if I'm part of the class action settlement? IIRC I refuse to take part of the lawsuit since I was planning on suing them in small claim court.
- tlrobinson 7y agoQuestion not specifically related to the settlement: Shouldn't this breach of nearly half of all Americans' social security numbers be the nail in the coffin of pretending SSNs are a secret that can be used to verify your identity?
- consultSKI 7y agoTreble due!
- nikolay 7y agoThey should be sued out of existence!