Equifax Data Breach Update | $125 Cash Settlement Option Has Been Significantly Decreased
If you already filed a claim for the Equifax Data Breach, read this!
The 2017 Equifax Data Breach exposed the personal information of over 140 million people, and as a result, Equifax agreed to a global settlement. This settlement includes up to $425 million to help anyone affected by the data breach.
As of last week, the Equifax Data Breach Settlement page stated that those persons affected could file a claim for 10 years of free credit monitoring OR a $125 per person payout (with a cap of $31 million).
Since millions of affected people selected the $125 payout option in just the first week alone, each person who takes the money option is now going to get a very small amount since there is only a total of $31 million to disperse (i.e. the original estimated amount of $125 per affected person has decreased to a very small amount).
For this reason, the settlement administrator will be sending an email to people who already submitted a claim with the opportunity to change their selection.
Equifax is encouraging most everyone affected to take advantage of the free credit monitoring, which has a market value of hundreds of dollars per year. The cash option will still be available to those who previously submitted, but the amount you will receive is likely to be very disappointing and will not include the free credit monitoring.
To change your claim, simply reply to the email you receive from the settlement administrator, or send an email to info@EquifaxBreachSettlement.com. If you’d like to keep the payout option, you may be asked to provide additional information.
If you were affected and have not filed yet, you can now choose from the following remedies:
- Free Credit Monitoring and Identity Theft Protection Services – up to 10 years of free credit monitoring
- Cash Payments (capped at $20,000 per person) – for expenses you paid as a result of the breach, like losses from unauthorized charges to your accounts, the cost of credit monitoring etc
- Free Help Recovering from Identity Theft
- Free Credit Reports for all U.S. consumers – starting in 2020, get six additional free credit reports per year for seven years from the Equifax website.
It’s almost as if nobody trusts them to safely monitor their credit or something. Go figure.
Just freeze your credit and there’s no need to monitor!
The settlement was always 147M qualified people getting a max of $31M. Nothing changed. I think I was just one of few people who read the fine print. It’s standard for a settlement.
They messed up BIG time and had a breach that could potentially impact millions of people and ruin lives. I don’t know why they think only $125 would have justified or helped out the issue, considering most credit monitoring is free. I mean, in all honesty, it’s the least that they could have done.
And they did the”LEAST” they could do!!!
I read this the day I applied. They had several sites break down the actual math of what you would actually get if everyone or most everyone applied for the 125. Which I believe if all selected the 125 it would reduce it down to .31 per person. I opted for the monitoring. It comes with 1,000,000$ fraud insurance.
And who do you think will pay you if you make a claim for fraud??? Equifax? 😂😂😂 Don’t hood your breath sister
It doesn’t say that Equifax is the provider of the protection service. My guess is they are using a third party because it provides this coverage:
At least four years of free monitoring of your credit report at all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and $1,000,000 of identity theft insurance.
Experian provides the monitoring for the first four years, and then you can opt for monitoring by Equifax for single bureau credit monitoring for another 6 years after the Experian coverage expires (I just filled out the claim form this morning).
It’s not like lifelock, they only alert you. Its not insurance of any kind from what I read.
If you choose the monitoring, you do also get $1M of id theft insurance coverage
They do NOT have a choice. It is part of the lawsuit. It states clearly that you get 1 million in fraud insurance. As per the suit if you file a claim they have to help you fix your credit for free. I guess you may want to look over the lawsuit again.
I opted for credit monitoring as well. I haven’t received any emails or anything from them. Any idea when I will get more info?
I haven’t received anything, either. Not sure when to expect it.
We opted for credit monitoring and it said we would receive an email in January with a code and instructions.
Welp this is upsetting news.
I’m irritated that we even have to mess with filing claims. If they can tell us whether or not we were affected then the very least they can do is automatically enroll us in the credit monitoring. This is just further proof that we can’t trust them to do the right thing.
Yeah. I can’t help but think that since the supposed market value of the credit monitoring is “several hundred dollars” (doubtful, otherwise they’d happily just pay out the $125 cash option) they’re hoping a majority of affected people do not submit claims.
I told my husband the day we filed the claims that they weren’t going to pay $125. They were stupid to think that more people would opt for the credit monitoring, especially since they were the ones that had the leak in the first place! I wouldn’t trust them to protect any of my information no matter how many years.
Where do you go to get the credit monitoring on their website? My info was one of millions who got leaked. And how do I check my kids info, or get monitoring for their info since their minors?
You have to submit a claim through the settlement page linked to get the free credit monitoring. As far as checking for your kids (which I did, too), I assumed that I just needed to use their SSN just like I did when I checked for myself and my husband.
you have to follow the instructions on the web page for children. It requires submitting proof that you are the parent and of the identifying information.
It requires a lot more work & documentation. I did put a credit freeze on my youngest son and myself & my husband.
Figures….🤦🏻♂️. 125.00 is not enough for the time and hassle a person has to go through once they have an issue.now it’s gonna be less. Wow. No justice here
To think it might be 21 cents. what a joke.
Why would anyone trust them to monitor their credit??? They were the ones with the breach in the first place. Both me and my husband apparently were affected by it. Not worth filing for like 20 cents 🙄
Credit freezes all around! What a joke.
my credit has been frozen and I was on the list. who wants credit monitoring from the same ppl that breached everyone to begin with?
That’s exactly what I said!
As usual, the lawyers are the only winners.
I was greatly affected by this – we are talking multiple stolen credit cards, credit applied for in my name, even going as far as touching my personal bank accounts because someone got ahold of my social security number through this. It ruined our finances for months. And now I might get, what?, $2 for my troubles? What a joke.
File all those documents!! Seriosuly, I claimed 10 hours of phone time alone that it took to resolve my account. They stole everything out of my bank account. I sent in all the documents, requested travel expenses to and from places, submitted my phone documents, I even file for time spent filing this claim. It took me over 5 hours to enter in everything. I also requested money back plus interest on credit cards that I had to use to make it until the bank resolved the issue. I claimed time spent with the credit bureaus and the ss administration.
With so many data breaches by multiple entities how can you say for certain that this was or wasn’t the one that led to your information getting stolen? I’m just curious because I know several companies I’ve done business with have had reported breaches. Fortunately so far I haven’t had any issues. Knock on wood!
I am most concerned about my kids. 2 of my 4 kids were affected and it is no easy thing to freeze their accounts. You have to mail in all sorts of documents as proof that you are the parent and they are the child. I think we should be able to freeze them online.
Did you determine that your kids were affected through the look-up tool?
In one section it states up to $125 but then through out the application it states a check in the amount of $125. Confusing.
I have a query. I checked and found that my data was affected by this breach and I didn’t know this. I have been using only credit karma as free service since 2014 after I opened my first credit card. Recently I bought a new car on loan. Now if I want to get benefit of this settlement. What option I should select without showing any documents because I don’t have any? Should I go for free credit monitoring service given by them …will that be worth ? Or should I go for $25 spend per hour option (max we can submit 10hours without documents proof) . Please advice ! I am new here in USA and have not much idea about this.