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Consumers who sought cash settlement from Equifax probably won't get full $125

234 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

rahuldottech 7y ago
> It’s also one more reason why the consumers who sought a cash settlement from Equifax won’t be getting the full $125 as initially expected. > In fact, consumers were never going to get $125, ... “That’s down to $6 or $7 [per consumer] now. Maybe even less than that,” That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6. That's not how much it's worth, that's just how much Equifax was able to corruptly negotiate to pay for losing it. If you really want to know how much it's worth, you could probably compute a reasonable estimate by taking all the money the credit bureaus from your credit file, and divide that by the number of credit files.
  - rahuldottech 7y ago
    Let me rephrase. $6 is what your personal information and identity is valued at by corporations.
    - ljm 7y ago
      It would be $0 and probably covered up if the corporation had the choice.
      - setr 7y ago
        If they had a choice, it'd be considered a burden and a tax write-off :-)
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      No. It’s much worth more than 6 to them but they are trying to tell you it’s less
  - ldoughty 7y ago
    Equifax followed all laws on the settlement. Also, when that statement is ever made, it really highlights flaws in our system when the rich/corporations/layers write the laws in their favor... So much for "for the people" right?
rahuldottech 7y ago
Also, let us not forget, Equifax execs sold stock before hack was disclosed https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-insider-sales-hack-data-breach/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-ins... > Three Equifax executives sold shares of the credit-reporting company worth nearly $2 million shortly after a massive data breach was discovered.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  I understand that this looks unfair, but why is this actually bad?
  - p0cc 7y ago
    Insider Trading [0] is a crime in the US. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      It might or might not have been insider trading. However, I think a journalist is seriously delinquent if they don't acknowledge that insiders normally schedule their stock trades ahead of time to insulate from insider trading accusations. A reader needs to know whether this was the case or not in order to be appropriately outraged.
      - thephyber 7y ago
        It was. I posted the SEC PR filing in reply to another comment on this article. > I think a journalist is seriously delinquent if they don't acknowledge ... I'm not sure I agree. If you consider how many topics journalists write about and how much necessary context that they would have to background-boilerplate, a 2 sentence update could easily become the length and readability of a ToS contract.
        perl4ever 7y ago
mrosett 7y ago
This headline is dishonest. I’m not getting my $125 because the settlement fund is dramatically too small. It looks like I’ll get about $6. If the attorneys got absolutely nothing, that number would be maybe $8. So attorney fees are <2% of the shortfall. I’m not pumped that Equifax is getting off for less than a half billion or that the attorneys are getting a big chunk of that. (It’s hard to say how much they should get, to be honest) But when I see a bullshit headline I have to call it out. By the way, they based the $125 on the assumption that almost everyone would take the worthless credit monitoring option.
- chrisan 7y ago
  Where are you getting 2% from? The 77.5 is roughly 20% of the settlement fund Or if you want to include the crap credit monitoring it is 11% of the total 700 In either case no one will be getting near 125 but still 80 million is quite a lot for them...
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    > 80 million is quite a lot for them Against $3.5bln in 2019 revenues? That's not really a lot at all.
    - zamadatix 7y ago
      Why are you comparing how much the lawyers get to Equifax revenue?
      - geofft 7y ago
        Because the point of the settlement, in theory, is A) for Equifax to be sufficiently disincentivized from being careless again B) restitution for victims. In my opinion as a victim, amount of the settlement (paid to lawyers or otherwise) is too small to accomplish A, and the amount paid to lawyers, if redirected to victims, is still too small to accomplish B. These are the only things that feel relevant to compare the amount to. If the two sides negotiated a settlement that involved a serious change of business practices at Equifax, a significant payout to meaningfully compensate victims, and a chocolate cake for every retired librarian in Tallahassee, I'd be slightly confused but I would be unequivocally happier with that settlement than the current one. While you could probably save a bit of money on the chocolate cakes, it would be much smaller than any of the other amounts in the case, and saving that money wouldn't have any real impact on the settlement actually doing what it needed to do.
reillyse 7y ago
Class actions are broken and rarely actually directly benefit the consumers. At best you can say it is a large club that can be wielded on behalf of consumers to force large corporations to behave responsibly. At worst it's a total racket where attorneys can get very very rich by "representing" consumers and shaking down large corporations, which will eventually end up being paid for by the consumers who were meant to be protected in the first place. I think the USA needs stronger regulators who can actually enforce the laws using fines and lawsuits rather than the legal system which does not work.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  From what I have read stuff like this is also high risk for the lawyers who may be working on this for years without getting paid. I agree that regulators should go after these companies and also prosecutors instead of putting people in jail for years for possession of marijuana.
  - throwawayjava 7y ago
    What about the Equifax case or the Zappos case is high risk? Or even low risk?
  - reillyse 7y ago
    1) regulators don't lock people up for marijuana use. 2) We would save Lawyers the risk of not getting paid if they didn't have the chance of getting paid. Expressed with less sarcasm, there is no shortage of lawyers coming out of the woodwork to start class action suits when something happens. Every time anything big happens there is a half dozen class actions that get filed straight away, then there is lots of overhead figuring out who's class action is the correct one and combining lawsuits, and all this "work" is only to the benefit of the attorneys filing the lawsuits not to the actual people they are claiming to represent. Anyway, it's rotten to the core.
    - reillyse 7y ago
      Apparently over 50 different law firms decided that Equifax was worth the risk. https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-lawsuits/ https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-lawsuits/
Gusen 7y ago
FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo all raped boys and paid billions in bribes for Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler, Schiff, & Mueller. So did media moguls Redstone, Murdoch, Moonves. What are they trying set up? Who can arrest them? \\*Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this 139 page PDF doc, last updated 12/18: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from page 26: Barack Obama & Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Accepting a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18 am on 4th Jan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Donald Trump rapes and kills a dozen boys, including five boys in a who can rape five boys to death the fastest' game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepts a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on17Jan2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo on the 17th of Jan2019 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.Mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan raped and killed boys on 5Jan2019 17:39 for billions in bribes: 5JanCh3_1600-1800.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ghgmNrQvJ8WfJ2TsDVx1ruDU36hrhx6S/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ghgmNrQvJ8WfJ2TsDVx1ruDU36h... 5JanCh2_1721-1818 mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and also with Adam Schiff all rape boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at about20mins in. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, and Schiff 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection:: Lester Holt, of NBC Nightly News, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 80's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15 am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp && Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone with Leslie Moonves rape boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 139pg PDF [updated last Wed 12/18/2019]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ...
hendersoon 7y ago
That's fine, I'm more interested in punishing companies for poor behavior than getting a couple bucks in my pocket.
tombert 7y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding about class action suits rarely benefit anyone but the lawyers; isn't the whole point to hurt the corporations where it hurts?
- TylerE 7y ago
  In theory, yes. In practice, as usual, they're getting fined $5 for stealing $100, so not really.
paggle 7y ago
This is actually a good thing. The more lawyers get to suckle at the teat of class actions, the more class actions they will file, which will have a deterrent effect on corporate malfeasance even if there is no restitution to the victims.
- Karunamon 7y ago
  The proliferation of binding arbitration provisions in contracts of adhesion puts a dent in that, sadly.
danShumway 7y ago
The point wasn't for me to get a lot of money. The point was for Equifax to lose money. Look, I'll badmouth lawyers as much as the next person, but anyone who wants to claim class actions are a mistake needs to come up with a better system before they trash this one. There are so few avenues for consumers to hold companies accountable right now. They just don't exist. And thanks to arbitration and class action bans in EULAs, even the few avenues we do have are getting gradually eroded. So first make regulatory penalties stricter, first set up real consequences for CEOs and boards. Then we can talk about revising class actions. I'm not satisfied with someone saying, "theoretically this could be better." Make the alternative systems better first, and then we'll talk about throwing away what we currently have. Like, holy crap, how short sighted can CNBC be? There are no working alternatives in the US to class actions right now. The tragedy isn't that the lawyers took 20% of 380 million dollars. The tragedy is that it was only 380 million dollars. I'd happily trade another 25-50% on top of the current lawyer take if they had gotten that total up to 750 million, or even a billion.
- RangerScience 7y ago
  Laywers get 20% of the restitution costs, on top of the restitution costs. If the courts deem that the resulting costs to the defendant are too low, additional amounts may be levied and given to relevant charities, or the ACLU (or things like it). If the company would collapse due to the costs, or otherwise would be unable to pay the full costs, executive bonuses (and potentially some pay, with limits) may be reclaimed, both towards allowing payment, and preventing failure in "too big to fail" situations. I miss anything? People get restitution. Lawyers get rewarded for quality work. Companies both pay damages, and a penalty on top of damages. Executives bear responsibility as people, not just the corporate entity.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Off the top of my head, I'd have no issue with this. Sounds great, particularly in how it would expand the ways we could hold executives personally responsible. The request I would make is, "can we build a real, working version of the system you propose before we get rid of the existing one?" I'm not eager to throw away what we have on the promise that we could build something great afterwards. The annoyance I feel when I read articles like this is that it's a bunch of reporters saying, "we need to do something about lawyers", and I just feel like -- if I'm in a leaky lifeboat, don't tell me to jump out of it until you have another boat next to me that I can climb into. We all know the lifeboat has leaks, but this lifeboat is real, and yours is (at least for now) imaginary.
thinkloop 7y ago
> It turned out that the money set aside in the roughly $380 million restitution fund specifically for cash compensation was capped at $31 million I can't parse this, how can a $380m fund be capped at $31m, isn't that a $31m fund?
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  I think they're including the value of the credit monitoring they offered people in that
  - thinkloop 7y ago
    Ah yeah you're right
  - chatmasta 7y ago
    Which is utterly insane considering it’s a near 100% margin business for them. The breach was basically a funnel into their free trial of credit monitoring.
- harryh 7y ago
  The majority of the money is set aside for victims who can show specific damages. A relatively small portion was set aside for the vast majority of the victims who's information was leaked but not actually used to cause them any specific harm.
  - basch 7y ago
    Since the leaked data never surfaced how can anyone prove damage?
    - pas 7y ago
      So was it leaked at all or just someone found the vuln?
      - basch 7y ago
akouri 7y ago
Equifax has made more money after the hack now that they are selling their credit monitoring as a service. I went to their website trying to figure out how to lock my credit report (which US govt mandated be a free thing to do) only to learn that in order to use the "free" option you have to go through hours of phone trees, or write in snail mail. If you want the ability to lock the report online or via an app, you have to pay ~$20/mo to Equifax. Total BS, and of course I wouldn't put it past this company to make money off their own data leak.
- davidjade 7y ago
  Equifax muddies the water here with “lock” vs “freeze” terminology on their web site. One costs money and one is free. The free is the mandated government version, which is a lock but I think they call it a freeze and can be done online. I’ve done it recently. It’s a really deceptive and dark pattern as they try and steer you Towards their paid version.
dznodes 7y ago
Andrew Yang should campaign on making Equifax pay for data pollution. In fact, every one of these "data breaches" should be treated like the BP Oil spill. If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place. If it cost them as much to clean up each spill as it cost BP, you better believe they would take better care not to let it happen again.
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  > If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place. It's so sad that this is even remotely controversial. Equifax should have gotten the same treatment as Arthur Andersen.
  - thephyber 7y ago
    From my reactive, emotional side, I would argue yes. From my rational, informed side, I would argue no. Here's my rationale. The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market and hasn't been actively used, which suggests this was a nation-state using the data for something other than profiting from fraud. This also suggests that the hack could easily be considered an "act of war", so given enough time+effort+resources, no company would likely be able to resist that breach (although I know Equifax could have done FAR better than they did). Technically I don't "own" the data that Equifax has about me. Equifax owns the collection of it, their reporters (ex retailers, landlords, bank/mortgage companies) each own a shard, and other data aggregators who contract with any one of these actors can own part/all of it. I am not Equifax's customer. They are required to deal with me based on a few rules defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the FCRA also provides some protections for credit reporting agencies who don't violate those rules. I'm sure they minimize the effort/resources they devote to helping credit consumers because that is the profit motive of every company. I'm sure Equifax has a ridiculous EULA/ToS that I probably implicitly agreed to when I used the AnnualCreditReport website, and probably additionally when I deal with any retailer that pulled credit reports from Equifax (including the IRS after the breach was revealed). It likely involved me signing away my rights to a class action litigation or my rights to a trial by jury, because that is par for large contemporary corporations. The standard for "protecting consumer data" is remarkably low except in a few sectors (ex. healthcare, retailers storing credit card data), and even in those it's still disheartening. The problem here is that companies can easily argue to {regulators, judges/juries, their BoD, cybersecurity vendors} that they can't be expected to spend more than the industry average because that hurts them more than the competitors. This just becomes a Prisoner's Dilemma where our data's security becomes the victim to corporate (in this case credit reporting bureau) self-interested decision making.
williesleg 7y ago
Lawyers are the scum of the earth.
thrower123 7y ago
I made sure to give as little information as possible when trying to apply for this settlement. I have no faith that that information will be secured, so we'll be doing this again in a year or two.
droithomme 7y ago
Cool, I just won a $200 bet with a friend of mine that these capricious bastards and the corrupt courts weren't going to do right AS ALWAYS.
stevespang 7y ago
American judges are "in on the take". They claim they are often forced to accept the deal, because plantiff and defendant agree on a deal (that benefits them to the exclusion of the class). This is American Justice, pure garbage . . .
OrgNet 7y ago
now I'm "happy" I chose the credit monitoring option...
bsimpson 7y ago
I feel weirdly vindicated that I didn't bother making a claim.
ch33zer 7y ago
I just got a settlement check in Lovelace v Global Payments Inc (http://lovelacesettlement.com/ http://lovelacesettlement.com/). The grand total? 20 cents. Read the FAQ, it's fascinating: $540,000 total from the company -$135,000 lawyers fees -$2,500 settlement representative (whatever that is) -$164,224 to distribute the payment ----- $233,276 for clients. I have no idea how much the company made by charging transaction fees on credit card payments for student loans (that's what they're accused of) but they got off with a slap on the wrist. They should have been required to give back ALL the money they made. Fucking scammers.
- pishpash 7y ago
  Settlement representative is the plantiff representing the class?
sabujp 7y ago
that's why i went with the credit monitoring in the end

234 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

> It’s also one more reason why the consumers who sought a cash settlement from Equifax won’t be getting the full $125 as initially expected. > In fact, consumers were never going to get $125, ... “That’s down to $6 or $7 [per consumer] now. Maybe even less than that,” That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6. That's not how much it's worth, that's just how much Equifax was able to corruptly negotiate to pay for losing it. If you really want to know how much it's worth, you could probably compute a reasonable estimate by taking all the money the credit bureaus from your credit file, and divide that by the number of credit files.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Let me rephrase. $6 is what your personal information and identity is valued at by corporations.
  - ljm 7y ago
    It would be $0 and probably covered up if the corporation had the choice.
    - setr 7y ago
      If they had a choice, it'd be considered a burden and a tax write-off :-)
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    No. It’s much worth more than 6 to them but they are trying to tell you it’s less
- ldoughty 7y ago
  Equifax followed all laws on the settlement. Also, when that statement is ever made, it really highlights flaws in our system when the rich/corporations/layers write the laws in their favor... So much for "for the people" right?

rahuldottech 7y ago

Also, let us not forget, Equifax execs sold stock before hack was disclosed https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-insider-sales-hack-data-breach/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-ins... > Three Equifax executives sold shares of the credit-reporting company worth nearly $2 million shortly after a massive data breach was discovered.

FDSGSG 7y ago
I understand that this looks unfair, but why is this actually bad?
- p0cc 7y ago
  Insider Trading [0] is a crime in the US. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    It might or might not have been insider trading. However, I think a journalist is seriously delinquent if they don't acknowledge that insiders normally schedule their stock trades ahead of time to insulate from insider trading accusations. A reader needs to know whether this was the case or not in order to be appropriately outraged.
    - thephyber 7y ago
      It was. I posted the SEC PR filing in reply to another comment on this article. > I think a journalist is seriously delinquent if they don't acknowledge ... I'm not sure I agree. If you consider how many topics journalists write about and how much necessary context that they would have to background-boilerplate, a 2 sentence update could easily become the length and readability of a ToS contract.
      - perl4ever 7y ago

mrosett 7y ago

This headline is dishonest. I’m not getting my $125 because the settlement fund is dramatically too small. It looks like I’ll get about $6. If the attorneys got absolutely nothing, that number would be maybe $8. So attorney fees are <2% of the shortfall. I’m not pumped that Equifax is getting off for less than a half billion or that the attorneys are getting a big chunk of that. (It’s hard to say how much they should get, to be honest) But when I see a bullshit headline I have to call it out. By the way, they based the $125 on the assumption that almost everyone would take the worthless credit monitoring option.

chrisan 7y ago
Where are you getting 2% from? The 77.5 is roughly 20% of the settlement fund Or if you want to include the crap credit monitoring it is 11% of the total 700 In either case no one will be getting near 125 but still 80 million is quite a lot for them...
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  > 80 million is quite a lot for them Against $3.5bln in 2019 revenues? That's not really a lot at all.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    Why are you comparing how much the lawyers get to Equifax revenue?
    - geofft 7y ago
      Because the point of the settlement, in theory, is A) for Equifax to be sufficiently disincentivized from being careless again B) restitution for victims. In my opinion as a victim, amount of the settlement (paid to lawyers or otherwise) is too small to accomplish A, and the amount paid to lawyers, if redirected to victims, is still too small to accomplish B. These are the only things that feel relevant to compare the amount to. If the two sides negotiated a settlement that involved a serious change of business practices at Equifax, a significant payout to meaningfully compensate victims, and a chocolate cake for every retired librarian in Tallahassee, I'd be slightly confused but I would be unequivocally happier with that settlement than the current one. While you could probably save a bit of money on the chocolate cakes, it would be much smaller than any of the other amounts in the case, and saving that money wouldn't have any real impact on the settlement actually doing what it needed to do.

reillyse 7y ago

Class actions are broken and rarely actually directly benefit the consumers. At best you can say it is a large club that can be wielded on behalf of consumers to force large corporations to behave responsibly. At worst it's a total racket where attorneys can get very very rich by "representing" consumers and shaking down large corporations, which will eventually end up being paid for by the consumers who were meant to be protected in the first place. I think the USA needs stronger regulators who can actually enforce the laws using fines and lawsuits rather than the legal system which does not work.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
From what I have read stuff like this is also high risk for the lawyers who may be working on this for years without getting paid. I agree that regulators should go after these companies and also prosecutors instead of putting people in jail for years for possession of marijuana.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  What about the Equifax case or the Zappos case is high risk? Or even low risk?
- reillyse 7y ago
  1) regulators don't lock people up for marijuana use. 2) We would save Lawyers the risk of not getting paid if they didn't have the chance of getting paid. Expressed with less sarcasm, there is no shortage of lawyers coming out of the woodwork to start class action suits when something happens. Every time anything big happens there is a half dozen class actions that get filed straight away, then there is lots of overhead figuring out who's class action is the correct one and combining lawsuits, and all this "work" is only to the benefit of the attorneys filing the lawsuits not to the actual people they are claiming to represent. Anyway, it's rotten to the core.
  - reillyse 7y ago
    Apparently over 50 different law firms decided that Equifax was worth the risk. https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-lawsuits/ https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-lawsuits/

Gusen 7y ago

FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo all raped boys and paid billions in bribes for Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler, Schiff, & Mueller. So did media moguls Redstone, Murdoch, Moonves. What are they trying set up? Who can arrest them? \\*Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this 139 page PDF doc, last updated 12/18: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from page 26: Barack Obama & Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Accepting a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18 am on 4th Jan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Donald Trump rapes and kills a dozen boys, including five boys in a who can rape five boys to death the fastest' game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepts a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on17Jan2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo on the 17th of Jan2019 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.Mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan raped and killed boys on 5Jan2019 17:39 for billions in bribes: 5JanCh3_1600-1800.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ghgmNrQvJ8WfJ2TsDVx1ruDU36hrhx6S/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ghgmNrQvJ8WfJ2TsDVx1ruDU36h... 5JanCh2_1721-1818 mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and also with Adam Schiff all rape boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at about20mins in. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, and Schiff 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection:: Lester Holt, of NBC Nightly News, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 80's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15 am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp && Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone with Leslie Moonves rape boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 139pg PDF [updated last Wed 12/18/2019]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJc9cGk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sj9EN_pHmicKS6rFQlmk67knMdJ...

hendersoon 7y ago

That's fine, I'm more interested in punishing companies for poor behavior than getting a couple bucks in my pocket.

tombert 7y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding about class action suits rarely benefit anyone but the lawyers; isn't the whole point to hurt the corporations where it hurts?

TylerE 7y ago
In theory, yes. In practice, as usual, they're getting fined $5 for stealing $100, so not really.

paggle 7y ago

This is actually a good thing. The more lawyers get to suckle at the teat of class actions, the more class actions they will file, which will have a deterrent effect on corporate malfeasance even if there is no restitution to the victims.

Karunamon 7y ago
The proliferation of binding arbitration provisions in contracts of adhesion puts a dent in that, sadly.

danShumway 7y ago

The point wasn't for me to get a lot of money. The point was for Equifax to lose money. Look, I'll badmouth lawyers as much as the next person, but anyone who wants to claim class actions are a mistake needs to come up with a better system before they trash this one. There are so few avenues for consumers to hold companies accountable right now. They just don't exist. And thanks to arbitration and class action bans in EULAs, even the few avenues we do have are getting gradually eroded. So first make regulatory penalties stricter, first set up real consequences for CEOs and boards. Then we can talk about revising class actions. I'm not satisfied with someone saying, "theoretically this could be better." Make the alternative systems better first, and then we'll talk about throwing away what we currently have. Like, holy crap, how short sighted can CNBC be? There are no working alternatives in the US to class actions right now. The tragedy isn't that the lawyers took 20% of 380 million dollars. The tragedy is that it was only 380 million dollars. I'd happily trade another 25-50% on top of the current lawyer take if they had gotten that total up to 750 million, or even a billion.

RangerScience 7y ago
Laywers get 20% of the restitution costs, on top of the restitution costs. If the courts deem that the resulting costs to the defendant are too low, additional amounts may be levied and given to relevant charities, or the ACLU (or things like it). If the company would collapse due to the costs, or otherwise would be unable to pay the full costs, executive bonuses (and potentially some pay, with limits) may be reclaimed, both towards allowing payment, and preventing failure in "too big to fail" situations. I miss anything? People get restitution. Lawyers get rewarded for quality work. Companies both pay damages, and a penalty on top of damages. Executives bear responsibility as people, not just the corporate entity.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Off the top of my head, I'd have no issue with this. Sounds great, particularly in how it would expand the ways we could hold executives personally responsible. The request I would make is, "can we build a real, working version of the system you propose before we get rid of the existing one?" I'm not eager to throw away what we have on the promise that we could build something great afterwards. The annoyance I feel when I read articles like this is that it's a bunch of reporters saying, "we need to do something about lawyers", and I just feel like -- if I'm in a leaky lifeboat, don't tell me to jump out of it until you have another boat next to me that I can climb into. We all know the lifeboat has leaks, but this lifeboat is real, and yours is (at least for now) imaginary.

thinkloop 7y ago

> It turned out that the money set aside in the roughly $380 million restitution fund specifically for cash compensation was capped at $31 million I can't parse this, how can a $380m fund be capped at $31m, isn't that a $31m fund?

iudqnolq 7y ago
I think they're including the value of the credit monitoring they offered people in that
- thinkloop 7y ago
  Ah yeah you're right
- chatmasta 7y ago
  Which is utterly insane considering it’s a near 100% margin business for them. The breach was basically a funnel into their free trial of credit monitoring.
harryh 7y ago
The majority of the money is set aside for victims who can show specific damages. A relatively small portion was set aside for the vast majority of the victims who's information was leaked but not actually used to cause them any specific harm.
- basch 7y ago
  Since the leaked data never surfaced how can anyone prove damage?
  - pas 7y ago
    So was it leaked at all or just someone found the vuln?
    - basch 7y ago

akouri 7y ago

Equifax has made more money after the hack now that they are selling their credit monitoring as a service. I went to their website trying to figure out how to lock my credit report (which US govt mandated be a free thing to do) only to learn that in order to use the "free" option you have to go through hours of phone trees, or write in snail mail. If you want the ability to lock the report online or via an app, you have to pay ~$20/mo to Equifax. Total BS, and of course I wouldn't put it past this company to make money off their own data leak.

davidjade 7y ago
Equifax muddies the water here with “lock” vs “freeze” terminology on their web site. One costs money and one is free. The free is the mandated government version, which is a lock but I think they call it a freeze and can be done online. I’ve done it recently. It’s a really deceptive and dark pattern as they try and steer you Towards their paid version.

dznodes 7y ago

Andrew Yang should campaign on making Equifax pay for data pollution. In fact, every one of these "data breaches" should be treated like the BP Oil spill. If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place. If it cost them as much to clean up each spill as it cost BP, you better believe they would take better care not to let it happen again.

boring_twenties 7y ago
> If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place. It's so sad that this is even remotely controversial. Equifax should have gotten the same treatment as Arthur Andersen.
- thephyber 7y ago
  From my reactive, emotional side, I would argue yes. From my rational, informed side, I would argue no. Here's my rationale. The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market and hasn't been actively used, which suggests this was a nation-state using the data for something other than profiting from fraud. This also suggests that the hack could easily be considered an "act of war", so given enough time+effort+resources, no company would likely be able to resist that breach (although I know Equifax could have done FAR better than they did). Technically I don't "own" the data that Equifax has about me. Equifax owns the collection of it, their reporters (ex retailers, landlords, bank/mortgage companies) each own a shard, and other data aggregators who contract with any one of these actors can own part/all of it. I am not Equifax's customer. They are required to deal with me based on a few rules defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the FCRA also provides some protections for credit reporting agencies who don't violate those rules. I'm sure they minimize the effort/resources they devote to helping credit consumers because that is the profit motive of every company. I'm sure Equifax has a ridiculous EULA/ToS that I probably implicitly agreed to when I used the AnnualCreditReport website, and probably additionally when I deal with any retailer that pulled credit reports from Equifax (including the IRS after the breach was revealed). It likely involved me signing away my rights to a class action litigation or my rights to a trial by jury, because that is par for large contemporary corporations. The standard for "protecting consumer data" is remarkably low except in a few sectors (ex. healthcare, retailers storing credit card data), and even in those it's still disheartening. The problem here is that companies can easily argue to {regulators, judges/juries, their BoD, cybersecurity vendors} that they can't be expected to spend more than the industry average because that hurts them more than the competitors. This just becomes a Prisoner's Dilemma where our data's security becomes the victim to corporate (in this case credit reporting bureau) self-interested decision making.

williesleg 7y ago

Lawyers are the scum of the earth.

thrower123 7y ago

I made sure to give as little information as possible when trying to apply for this settlement. I have no faith that that information will be secured, so we'll be doing this again in a year or two.

droithomme 7y ago

Cool, I just won a $200 bet with a friend of mine that these capricious bastards and the corrupt courts weren't going to do right AS ALWAYS.

stevespang 7y ago

American judges are "in on the take". They claim they are often forced to accept the deal, because plantiff and defendant agree on a deal (that benefits them to the exclusion of the class). This is American Justice, pure garbage . . .

OrgNet 7y ago

now I'm "happy" I chose the credit monitoring option...

bsimpson 7y ago

I feel weirdly vindicated that I didn't bother making a claim.

ch33zer 7y ago

I just got a settlement check in Lovelace v Global Payments Inc (http://lovelacesettlement.com/ http://lovelacesettlement.com/). The grand total? 20 cents. Read the FAQ, it's fascinating: $540,000 total from the company -$135,000 lawyers fees -$2,500 settlement representative (whatever that is) -$164,224 to distribute the payment ----- $233,276 for clients. I have no idea how much the company made by charging transaction fees on credit card payments for student loans (that's what they're accused of) but they got off with a slap on the wrist. They should have been required to give back ALL the money they made. Fucking scammers.

pishpash 7y ago
Settlement representative is the plantiff representing the class?

sabujp 7y ago

that's why i went with the credit monitoring in the end