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No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

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Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#21

Post by jerf »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #11
calvinbhai wrote: post #6

So, this basically is a way for Equifax to get a mass waiver from people to make a class action lawsuit less damaging to the company. Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. another funny thing is that if you sign up for their crappy product, you have to come back on a different day and complete the sign up. There wont be emails or notifications. If you forget to signup, then you have bas…

> For every SSN entered, Equifax can say in a class action lawsuit that they have waivers from all the following SSNs .... Equifax themselves have said they'll only use the waiver with respect to the credit monitoring service, and not to the security breach: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/equifax-says-it-wont-bar-c... You could say, "Maybe they're lying", but it seems like it would be pretty easy for the class act…

They're not lying, because the act of saying it made it true. A court would no longer permit them that argument because the counterparty would just present that highly public statement. (Maybe there's a tiny chance they could wiggle out of it, but they would have to find a human judge who would let them, and I imagine those are in short supply in a case like this.)

See: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Promissory+Est...

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#22

Post by fastball »

Here is a crazy alternate theory for you guys, which I think fits all the details we have so far.

1. Equifax was never hacked.

2. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database.

3. Come up with a system to get the information they lost back, via a "have I been pwned?" checker.

3a. If you enter your details and they are not in their database, they assume it is one of the persons they deleted, add it to their database, and give you a "maybe hacked" message. Obviously a fictitious person would never have been in any of their databases, deleted or otherwise. So, assuming this fake person must be a deleted person, they add the info and show the "maybe hacked" message.

3b. If you enter your details and you are one of the lucky (haha) persons that were not deleted, you get a "you are safe" message.

4. Equifax gets a lot of their database they deleted back with little effort on their part.

What do you think?

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#23

Post by QAPereo »

paulgb wrote: post #12
calvinbhai wrote: post #6

So, this basically is a way for Equifax to get a mass waiver from people to make a class action lawsuit less damaging to the company. Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. another funny thing is that if you sign up for their crappy product, you have to come back on a different day and complete the sign up. There wont be emails or notifications. If you forget to signup, then you have bas…

> Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. I freaking hate tactics like this, so I am offering to go through the mailing process for anyone who fills out the form at https://unarbitrate.org/ . I'll pay to mail it, just because I hate this sort of thing. If you don't trust me with your data, the site also provides a way to print it and mail it yourself. But whatever it takes, I encourage ev…

Hell of a thing to do, putting your money where your convictions are.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#25

Post by hellofunk »

lisper wrote: post #18
hellofunk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that merely by seeing if you were impacted, you are waiving your rights, even if you don't come back on the scheduled day to complete the enrollment? That sounds ridiculous. Nowhere in the simple form that they provided is there any mention of waiving any rights. Nor is there one of those standard checkboxes about "I accept the terms.." when filling out that little form.

Not quite. They tell you you're impacted, then "helpfully" offer to sign you up for a service that will (supposedly) help to mitigate the damage. Buried in the TOS for that service is a clause that you give up your right to sue. It's a textbook scam.

I received an enrollment date next week, but wonder if I do not follow through if I've already given up any rights.

This whole thing is just weird.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#26

Post by prklmn »

hellofunk wrote: post #10
calvinbhai wrote: post #6

So, this basically is a way for Equifax to get a mass waiver from people to make a class action lawsuit less damaging to the company. Opting out of the waiver is a long winded process of mailing a form. another funny thing is that if you sign up for their crappy product, you have to come back on a different day and complete the sign up. There wont be emails or notifications. If you forget to signup, then you have bas…

Are you saying that merely by seeing if you were impacted, you are waiving your rights, even if you don't come back on the scheduled day to complete the enrollment? That sounds ridiculous. Nowhere in the simple form that they provided is there any mention of waiving any rights. Nor is there one of those standard checkboxes about "I accept the terms.." when filling out that little form.

You don't need to worry. Equifax can say whatever they want in their BS terms, however no judge in their right mind would enforce such language barring you from joining a class action suit. If equifax sent out some sort of compensation check, and you cashed it, that's a different story.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#27

Post by Johnny555 »

fastball wrote: post #22

Here is a crazy alternate theory for you guys, which I think fits all the details we have so far. 1. Equifax was never hacked. 2. Equifax accidentally deleted a substantial portion of their database. 3. Come up with a system to get the information they lost back, via a "have I been pwned?" checker. 3a. If you enter your details and they are not in their database, they assume it is one of the persons they deleted, add…

If all they need is a database of basic consumer info, they could buy that list from one of the other credit reporting agencies and avoid the public scrutiny of themselves and the industry itself.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#28

Post by cmurf »

lisper wrote: post #18
hellofunk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that merely by seeing if you were impacted, you are waiving your rights, even if you don't come back on the scheduled day to complete the enrollment? That sounds ridiculous. Nowhere in the simple form that they provided is there any mention of waiving any rights. Nor is there one of those standard checkboxes about "I accept the terms.." when filling out that little form.

Not quite. They tell you you're impacted, then "helpfully" offer to sign you up for a service that will (supposedly) help to mitigate the damage. Buried in the TOS for that service is a clause that you give up your right to sue. It's a textbook scam.

A friend also told me the TOS for the monitoring includes, by default, automatic renewal of credit monitoring for a fee after the free first year.

Re: No matter what, Equifax may tell you you’ve been impacted by the hack

#30

Post by lisper »

hellofunk wrote: post #25
lisper wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. They tell you you're impacted, then "helpfully" offer to sign you up for a service that will (supposedly) help to mitigate the damage. Buried in the TOS for that service is a clause that you give up your right to sue. It's a textbook scam.

I received an enrollment date next week, but wonder if I do not follow through if I've already given up any rights. This whole thing is just weird.

"Weird" is not the adjective that I would choose. "Despicable" is more like it.
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