“Class Counsel will ask the Court to award them attorneys’ fees of up to $77,500,000 and reimbursement for costs and expenses up to $3,000,000 to be paid from the Consumer Restitution Fund.”
The lawyers are the real winner here.
Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
181–190 of 210 posts
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#182This is the first time I've seen cash vs. the useless credit monitoring as a compensation offer.
You can only claim the $125 cash if you affirm that you're already paying for credit monitoring. While I don't expect anyone to confirm your claim, you do have to sign your name to a legal document stating as much. You can make additional compensation claims if you suffered actual damage or spent time dealing with the breach, but as I could not honestly claim such, I don't know what that part of the process entails.
Already have credit monitoring due to one of the infinity of other breaches.
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really interesting! Does submitting a claim here prevent you from suing Equifax in small claims court? It seems possible that a $5000 may be worth my time.
Not only does submitting a claim prevent you from suing Equifax, the only way to preserve your right to sue is to actively exclude yourself from the settlement. See FAQs 19 and 23. 19: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq#q-19 23: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq#q-23
That can’t be legally binding
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#184I don't want money. I don't want free service. I don't want any compensation. I want Equifax as a company to be dissolved for incompetency with private data, and I want a way to legally opt out of other such companies collecting and aggregating private data about me.
> I want a way to legally opt out of other such companies collecting and aggregating private data about me. Compare a desire to legally opt out (after checking a box, agreeing to a privacy policy you never read, having your data from 10 years ago - with a chain of custody/dispersal that's probably untenable, if not impossible, to map by now - synthesized by a third party) to GDPR's concept of consent: "The key point…
Set standard loan terms according to worst-case credit risk. Offer personalized terms to those who agree to the data collection and processing necessary for personalization.
Subprime loan products already exist. They do typically run your credit, but they don't need to: the fact that you would pay for one says all that needs to be said. They're also typically offered under different branding from a respectable financial institution's loan products for people with good credit. An opt-in requirement for credit reporting only changes these basically cosmetic facts.
Better-than-worst-case credit history is immensely valuable. So valuable that a lender will cut you in on tens of thousands of dollars in savings for sharing it. Of all the things you could need opt-in consent for, it's an easy sell. Everyone would buy it. We'd be in the same position.
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Equifax tracking is opt-in. It's a term on any loan or credit card you take out.
GDPR "opt-in" consent definition also says it must be possible to "opt-out" and still receive the service. If the data is required for providing the service, no consent is needed, but you must be able to clearly show that the data is indeed an absolute requirement to provide the service.
Someone would probably be willing to write you a loan with opaque credit history, for the right price. But that price would be so high you'd never agree to pay it. (This is not the same as no credit history. No credit history means you have not taken out any loans before. An unknown history with credit, that you decline to reveal, is far worse).
Credit reporting is an immensely valuable institution, and a lot of that value gets passed down to borrowers.
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only does submitting a claim prevent you from suing Equifax, the only way to preserve your right to sue is to actively exclude yourself from the settlement. See FAQs 19 and 23. 19: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq#q-19 23: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq#q-23
That can’t be legally binding
It appears that rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure binds even unnamed parties of a class action suit, unless they exclude themselves from an eligible suit.
https://civilprocedure.uslegal.com/class-action/binding-natu...
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#187This is the first time I've seen cash vs. the useless credit monitoring as a compensation offer.
You can only claim the $125 cash if you affirm that you're already paying for credit monitoring. While I don't expect anyone to confirm your claim, you do have to sign your name to a legal document stating as much. You can make additional compensation claims if you suffered actual damage or spent time dealing with the breach, but as I could not honestly claim such, I don't know what that part of the process entails.
Many services offer credit monitoring for free, eg credit cards, CreditKarma. You don’t need to be paying for it to be eligible for the cash payout.
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
So your financial history is being tracked and scrutinized. At 41, you might be able to live and die without this being a big problem. In my 20s, I worry about my ability to secure healthcare and other such necessities in my later life based on a social credit score which includes financial credit history I never opted into. Just getting on a lease is enough for a credit pull. It's unavoidable.
It's easy to sign a lease with no credit history. At most they'll just ask for a bigger security deposit.
I've been denied tons of every day things because of no credit history. I can't even get a credit card.
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just false. Lots of real estate organizations require a credit pull as part of your application. You aren't renting from the owner/landlord but from the property manager; there's no notion of just "pay a bigger deposit to make up for your lack of credit history". It's also pretty much impossible to get through modern society without a credit card if you want to do anything crazy like, rent a car or reserve a…
That has not been my experience or the experience of many people that I know. Property managers care about risk. The risk of someone with low/no credit can almost always be mitigated with cash. I discuss issues with renting cars and hotel rooms in sibling threads.
This may be true, but it's out-of-band. We need frameworks which ensure a level playing field, not tricks and loopholes which only allow the most cunning or fortunate of those with little credit to succeed in life.
Re: Submit Your Claim in the Equifax Breach Settlement
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
15-20 years ago, yes, absolutely. Maybe even 10. Now, it's nearly impossible unless you want a slumlord. Maximum security deposits are set by the state. In my state it's illegal to require more than two months rent as a security deposit. Security deposit is defined by statute, you can't just call it "rent prepayment."
So everyone with bad or no credit is locked out of the rental market? That....doesn't make a lot of sense. Where are they living?
I apologize for breaking up our communication across this thread but you've made several fair points I would like to address.
Even my last apartment required a cosigner because of my lack of credit history. I don't have any family to turn to so I had to rely on the family of someone else. Many people don't even have that good fortune.
Less directly, I was illegally evicted from my first apartment (3 days to move out over burst pipes in a multi-unit dwelling which caused our unit to flood) and due to not having the credit to get a loan to hire a lawyer to defend me against a clear cut case, I was blacklisted by my vengeful landlord and banned from renting anywhere in that city. Only lease I managed to get in that city after that was because I was friends with the leasing agent. I also lost hundreds of dollars in furniture including some vintage pieces due to getting only 3 days notice to vacate.
This set me back tremendously; as you can see it's a bit of a feedback loop between bad credit and bad rental experiences.