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You'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 You

You'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.

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harryh 7y ago
Equifax 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."
- deleted 7y ago
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- aloknnikhil 7y ago
  Fair enough. That just makes the whole thing even worse. There's basically no hope in receiving the compensation anymore.
  - harryh 7y ago
    The vast majority of the settlement is designated for people who experience actual harm (identity theft of some kind basically) from the breach. It's perfectly reasonable that people who's lives haven't been negatively impacted in any real way don't receive anything more than a token payment.
    - aloknnikhil 7y ago
      The alternative compensations was set at $31 million. And the cash compensations per person caps out at $20,000. If we start with this cap, the settlement was supposed to benefit only 1,550 individuals out of the 148 million records that were breached. Even if you assume just $125 per person, that number only benefits 248,000. So the number of people benefiting from this range between 1,550 and 248,000, if the original settlement claims were to be upheld. Instead, every claimant is now being asked to get credit monitoring from the same company that couldn't secure the records. To be fair, the FTC does suggest getting an alternative from Experian, but only in the FAQ.
      - harryh 7y ago
        The 31 million is for the people that haven't experienced any identity theft. This is the money being split up by all the people making $125 claims. The total pool to pay out claims to consumer is 425 million. Subtracting the 31M that leaves 394 million for people who experience real harm. The $20,000 cap per person is for people drawing money from this pool.
        aloknnikhil 7y ago
        Um, the FTC says otherwise. > For consumers impacted by the Equifax breach, today’s settlement will make available up to $425 million for time and money they spent to protect themselves from potential threats of identity theft or addressing incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/equifax-pay-575-million-part-settlement-ftc-cfpb-states-related https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/equif... That consumer fund of $425 million was "supposed" to also cover protection from any potential incidents of identity theft. So, let's go with this pool then. Assuming there are 21,250 valid claims qualifying for the cap, is the settlement complete? There's no one left to compensate? I'd say clearly not. Are you willing to bet that only 0.01% of the breached credentials were misused? How did they even arrive at this number? Let's say we assume, it really is a number lower than that. With whatever's left, I'd be willing to bet, a significant number would not trust Equifax with monitoring anymore. Perhaps they even bought credit monitoring as a reaction to the breach. How do you compensate that? Which ever way you want to slice this, it's clearly insufficient.

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harryh 7y ago

Equifax 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."

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aloknnikhil 7y ago
Fair enough. That just makes the whole thing even worse. There's basically no hope in receiving the compensation anymore.
- harryh 7y ago
  The vast majority of the settlement is designated for people who experience actual harm (identity theft of some kind basically) from the breach. It's perfectly reasonable that people who's lives haven't been negatively impacted in any real way don't receive anything more than a token payment.
  - aloknnikhil 7y ago
    The alternative compensations was set at $31 million. And the cash compensations per person caps out at $20,000. If we start with this cap, the settlement was supposed to benefit only 1,550 individuals out of the 148 million records that were breached. Even if you assume just $125 per person, that number only benefits 248,000. So the number of people benefiting from this range between 1,550 and 248,000, if the original settlement claims were to be upheld. Instead, every claimant is now being asked to get credit monitoring from the same company that couldn't secure the records. To be fair, the FTC does suggest getting an alternative from Experian, but only in the FAQ.
    - harryh 7y ago
      The 31 million is for the people that haven't experienced any identity theft. This is the money being split up by all the people making $125 claims. The total pool to pay out claims to consumer is 425 million. Subtracting the 31M that leaves 394 million for people who experience real harm. The $20,000 cap per person is for people drawing money from this pool.
      - aloknnikhil 7y ago
        Um, the FTC says otherwise. > For consumers impacted by the Equifax breach, today’s settlement will make available up to $425 million for time and money they spent to protect themselves from potential threats of identity theft or addressing incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/equifax-pay-575-million-part-settlement-ftc-cfpb-states-related https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/equif... That consumer fund of $425 million was "supposed" to also cover protection from any potential incidents of identity theft. So, let's go with this pool then. Assuming there are 21,250 valid claims qualifying for the cap, is the settlement complete? There's no one left to compensate? I'd say clearly not. Are you willing to bet that only 0.01% of the breached credentials were misused? How did they even arrive at this number? Let's say we assume, it really is a number lower than that. With whatever's left, I'd be willing to bet, a significant number would not trust Equifax with monitoring anymore. Perhaps they even bought credit monitoring as a reaction to the breach. How do you compensate that? Which ever way you want to slice this, it's clearly insufficient.