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Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

nytimes.com

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Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#131
Don't know if anyone posted this before, but if you scroll down to #25 here: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq

You can send a letter to the Courts and let them know why you do or don't think this is a sufficient and decent settlement.

Share it, let's get people writing in, because this lets Equifax keep really everything and in the end little real effect from their failure to take care of the information they were entrusted with.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#132
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's doubly painful, because the "free credit monitoring" on offer is provided by Equifax -- the exact company whose competence we don't trust anymore. The compensation for being affected by Equifax's security failure is a gratis security offering from that same company. For crying out loud, they could have at least paid Experian or TransUnion to do the monitoring: while they are just as shady, we don't have immediat…

> It's doubly painful, because the "free credit monitoring" on offer is provided by Equifax -- the exact company whose competence we don't trust anymore. The free credit monitoring is provided by Experian, not Equifax. [1] [1] https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/

Oh neat, I must have glossed over that part. Egg on my face then. It's still not great, but significantly better than I thought it was.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#133
post #131

Don't know if anyone posted this before, but if you scroll down to #25 here: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq You can send a letter to the Courts and let them know why you do or don't think this is a sufficient and decent settlement. Share it, let's get people writing in, because this lets Equifax keep really everything and in the end little real effect from their failure to take care of the information th…

Thanks for posting this. My wife and I already have credit monitoring so we’ve been very frustrated that it seems like Equifax will be weaseling out of paying us our $125 each. We’ll be sending a couple of letters today. Personally I’d like to see the courts rethink the settlement and force the $125 payout to everyone who requested it.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#135
post #131

Don't know if anyone posted this before, but if you scroll down to #25 here: https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/faq You can send a letter to the Courts and let them know why you do or don't think this is a sufficient and decent settlement. Share it, let's get people writing in, because this lets Equifax keep really everything and in the end little real effect from their failure to take care of the information th…

To be clear, can anyone assumedly become a "Settlement Class Member" simply by being an American citizen or having an SSN (and thus being affected by the breach?)

edit: Thanks for replies; the answer is "no". You can check if you were affected on the settlement homepage under "I would like to..."

I was not affected by the breach, so a letter from me would not matter.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#136
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's doubly painful, because the "free credit monitoring" on offer is provided by Equifax -- the exact company whose competence we don't trust anymore. The compensation for being affected by Equifax's security failure is a gratis security offering from that same company. For crying out loud, they could have at least paid Experian or TransUnion to do the monitoring: while they are just as shady, we don't have immediat…

> It's doubly painful, because the "free credit monitoring" on offer is provided by Equifax -- the exact company whose competence we don't trust anymore. The free credit monitoring is provided by Experian, not Equifax. [1] [1] https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/

If it only looks suspicious, it is. They all golf together.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#137
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative compensations was set at $31 million. And the cash compensations per person caps out at $20,000. If we start with this cap, the settlement was supposed to benefit only 1,550 individuals out of the 148 million records that were breached. Even if you assume just $125 per person, that number only benefits 248,000. So the number of people benefiting from this range between 1,550 and 248,000, if the origin…

The 31 million is for the people that haven't experienced any identity theft. This is the money being split up by all the people making $125 claims. The total pool to pay out claims to consumer is 425 million. Subtracting the 31M that leaves 394 million for people who experience real harm. The $20,000 cap per person is for people drawing money from this pool.

Um, the FTC says otherwise.

> For consumers impacted by the Equifax breach, today’s settlement will make available up to $425 million for time and money they spent to protect themselves from potential threats of identity theft or addressing incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/equif...

That consumer fund of $425 million was "supposed" to also cover protection from any potential incidents of identity theft. So, let's go with this pool then. Assuming there are 21,250 valid claims qualifying for the cap, is the settlement complete? There's no one left to compensate? I'd say clearly not. Are you willing to bet that only 0.01% of the breached credentials were misused? How did they even arrive at this number? Let's say we assume, it really is a number lower than that. With whatever's left, I'd be willing to bet, a significant number would not trust Equifax with monitoring anymore. Perhaps they even bought credit monitoring as a reaction to the breach. How do you compensate that? Which ever way you want to slice this, it's clearly insufficient.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pointing out that this analogy doesn't hold. Netflix's customer base running desktop Linux are a rounding error for the foreseeable future. 99% of any lender's customers would be at least somewhat pleased to drop Equifax and none of them receive any benefit from using Equifax's service over their competitors.

The amount of people who will actually demand a lender to omit Equifax is also complete roundoff error and insignificant compared with political dealing etc.

That is a self-fulfilling prophecy with no utility to the people making it.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#139
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world, a government agency would fine Equifax the full amount, and customers could claim their money from them instead.

Or better, liquidate Equifax entirely to demonstrate that there are consequences that a fancy law firm can't mitigate. I realize that's wishful thinking. Of course they're going to get away with paying what is effectively a parking ticket. Nor will any of their executives face any meaningful repercussions.

Courts would also have to bar current board members and maybe even investors from founding another credit agency. Not good enough to kill the company, gotta make sure it doesn’t come back.

Re: Equifax doesn't want consumers to get their $125

#140
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 31 million is for the people that haven't experienced any identity theft. This is the money being split up by all the people making $125 claims. The total pool to pay out claims to consumer is 425 million. Subtracting the 31M that leaves 394 million for people who experience real harm. The $20,000 cap per person is for people drawing money from this pool.

Um, the FTC says otherwise. > For consumers impacted by the Equifax breach, today’s settlement will make available up to $425 million for time and money they spent to protect themselves from potential threats of identity theft or addressing incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/equif... That consumer fund of $425 million was "supposed" to also co…

That FTC statement says exactly what I said:

There is a 425 million pool. It's to be used for:

1) "time and money they spent to protect themselves from potential threats of identity theft" (the 31 million part)

OR

2) "addressing incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach" (the 394 million part)

And yes, at some point both pools can be exhausted at which case there will be no more money for future claims. That's how a settlement works. Since there have currently been exactly 0 incidents of identity theft as a result of the breach it might not be so far fetched to say that there will be plenty of money in the pool to cover any incidents.

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