This Equifax data breach settlement keeps getting sillier…
We Were Promised $125 For Equifax Data Breach
In September 2017 Equifax had a massive data breach that exposed the personal information of about 147 million Americans, and several weeks ago a settlement was finally reached with the Federal Trade Commission.
If you’re one of the people who was impacted by this (nearly half of Americans were) you’re entitled to either free credit monitoring or some cash as part of the settlement.
What’s odd is that at first the FTC said that the choice was either 10 years of free credit monitoring or $125. As I covered in the post, that didn’t really make much sense.
Usually in settlements like this there’s some amount of money distributed among those who were impacted, but given that we’re talking about a finite sum of money, I couldn’t figure out how they arrived at the amount of $125. Presumably the payout would be based on how many people take part in requesting compensation.
So we later found out that no one is actually getting $125, and Senator Warren even sent a letter to the Inspector General of the FTC asking for answers about how this all came to be.
The Saga Continues If You Want Your Money
At first everyone thought they were getting $125. Then we were told that we’re not getting anywhere close to $125. Well, now action is required if you actually want to receive any money at all (which may only be a few dollars).
If you want to receive some portion of the cash settlement you need to amend your claim and provide the name of your credit monitoring service that you had in place when you filed your claim.
Here’s what the email says, in part:
According to our records, you filed a claim for alternative compensation of up to $125 in connection with the Equifax data breach settlement and certified on the claim form that you had some form of credit monitoring or protection in place and will continue to have the credit monitoring in place for a minimum of six months from the date of your claim filing.
You must either verify or amend your claim by October 15, 2019.
If you do not, your claim for alternative compensation will be denied.
To verify your claim for alternative compensation, you must provide the name of your credit monitoring service that you had in place when you filed your claim.
– OR –
You can amend your claim to request free credit monitoring instead of alternative compensation.
The easiest way to verify or amend your claim is by visiting the official Settlement Website here.
Please note that if you do not take action by October 15, 2019, your claim for alternative compensation will be denied.
Bottom Line
If you want to claim some portion of the settlement you’ll have to confirm the service you use for credit monitoring. I guess this is one way to reduce the number of people participating in the settlement…
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