FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring • Hacker News Board

Re: FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring

#61

Post by taborj » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

fooey wrote: post #2

The FTC's FAQ that was updated: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/refunds/eq... > 5. I thought I could choose $125 instead of free credit monitoring. What happened? > The public response to the settlement has been overwhelming. Millions of people have visited this site in just the first week. Because the total amount available for these alternative payments is $31 million, each person who takes the mo…

> For a little math, $31 million only makes it to 248,000 claims of the 150,000,000 people affected before it starts diluting.

It's even more fun if you look at it as a percentage. They leaked data on 147,000,000 people, and only have enough cash to pay out for 248,000. That's 0.0017% of those affected.

Who in their right mind thought that so few would want reimbursement?

Re: FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring

#62

Post by taborj » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #42

rconti wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is your time worth?

That’s an utterly irrelevant question unless you have evidence of the equifax data being abused.

> That’s an utterly irrelevant question unless you have evidence of the equifax data being abused.

No, because time spent putting safeguards in place to prevent its usage should it be abused is worth something.

You don't lock your doors after someone has broken into your house; you take measures to keep them out. In the same vein, you don't protect your credit after someone has abused it; you take measures to keep it from having serious consequences.

And taking measures costs time, and time is money.

Re: FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring

#63

Post by davvolun » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

jpetrucc wrote: post #13

It seems absurd that they only need to allocate $31 million for "alternative payments" while the old CEO leaves with close to $20 million in bonuses [0], while the rest of the money in the settlement is basically reserved for them to pay themselves for their "free" credit monitoring. This whole situation was a good opportunity to set a precedent for companies not taking data security seriously. But they've instead sh…

While I agree that this factor is stupid -- either it wasn't well-thought or it was intended to be a way to avoid fairly compensating victims, whatever.

That said, they are paying a total of about $700M, in fees and compensation and so. The actual amount is probably going to be less -- if every single person took the $125, then the $31M for credit monitoring wouldn't be used at all. But for comparison, in Q2 2019, Equifax report about $900M in revenue. So they lost a full quarter of profit out of this.

Is that fair? Does that actually give sufficient incentive to keep this from happening again, by Equifax, or by TransUnion/Experian? I don't know.

I can say I'm not happy about this, the golden parachutes are bullshit, how they sat on the hack and then tried to scapegoat an engineer over it is infuriating, but I'm sure they are scrambling to lock down their security now, if not before, and I can't realistically see the current CEO letting something like this happen again.

Although, as they say, lightning never strikes the same place twice -- they'll lock down these avenues, but what are they going to miss? Can we actually trust them not to leave other vulnerabilities? We don't really have a choice, do we? I can't opt out of their "service."

Re: FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring

#64

Post by ryanlol » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

taborj wrote: post #62

ryanlol wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an utterly irrelevant question unless you have evidence of the equifax data being abused.

> That’s an utterly irrelevant question unless you have evidence of the equifax data being abused. No, because time spent putting safeguards in place to prevent its usage should it be abused is worth something. You don't lock your doors after someone has broken into your house; you take measures to keep them out. In the same vein, you don't protect your credit after someone has abused it; you take measures to keep it…

There are simply no useful measures you could take in response to the Equifax breach.

If you choose to waste your time that is on you, not Equifax.

Re: FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring

#65

Post by taborj » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #64

taborj wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s an utterly irrelevant question unless you have evidence of the equifax data being abused. No, because time spent putting safeguards in place to prevent its usage should it be abused is worth something. You don't lock your doors after someone has broken into your house; you take measures to keep them out. In the same vein, you don't protect your credit after someone has abused it; you take measures to keep it…

There are simply no useful measures you could take in response to the Equifax breach. If you choose to waste your time that is on you, not Equifax.

Ah, the old "this is hard, let's give up" strategy. No thanks, that's not for me.

Re: FTC: Equifax might run out of cash, so please take the credit monitoring

#66

Post by ryanlol » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

taborj wrote: post #65

ryanlol wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are simply no useful measures you could take in response to the Equifax breach. If you choose to waste your time that is on you, not Equifax.

Ah, the old "this is hard, let's give up" strategy. No thanks, that's not for me.

What useful safeguards do you imagine people had to spend time putting up because of the equifax breach?

If you can’t name any, how can there be costs?