Remember the Equifax data breach announce in March of 2018? Maybe not, because it came just after the Target and Home Depot data breaches. In this case you might get something more out of it than aggravation, but only if you take about two minutes to submit a claim under the settlement Equifax just agreed to. However, David Lazarus, writing in the Los Angeles Times, says the company is probably hoping you won’t.
Check If Your Data Was Breached
It’s really easy to check if your data was breached (its estimated that 147 million people had their information stolen). I checked and mine was, and it only took about 10 seconds to check and about 2 minutes to file a claim. Here is the link: EquifaxBreachSettlement.com. Once you click it, scroll down to the link to find out if your information was impacted.
If you file a claim you are entitled to up to 10 years of free credit monitoring, four years at the 3 big bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, along with $1 million in identity theft insurance, and six additional years of monitoring by Equifax alone. Consumers who are already paying for credit monitoring can receive $125 in cash instead.
Additional compensation is available to those who spent time protect their accounts from damage due to the breach. There is addition compensation for those who can document actual expenditures to do so or can provide identity theft losses. All cash claims are capped at $20,000.
According to the FTC, the settlement reached between the company and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and 50 U.S. states, will reach up to $425 million to help people affected by the breach. Other sources report the settlement could reach as high as $700 million.
Another large settlement to note is Facebook’s settlement of $5 billion for allowing Cambridge Analytica access to the data of 87 million users. I will post more on this one later.
Take 2 Minutes To Make Them Pay
If you have a couple minutes, may as well make the effort to penalize Equifax for not properly protecting your personal information. Most of us who have credit where affected and you can at least get free credit monitoring and free identify theft protection- something some people pay a lot of money to have. Here is the link again to check if your information was impacted and file a claim EquifaxBreachSettlement.com.
