(This and other breaches means your on line presence and info such as your SSN is probably somewhere in the process of moving to the dark web to be sold. Or it will be weaponized by rogue countries or instruments of rogue countries whenever that country wishes. So, in a way, trying to protect your SSN, for example, by not giving it to a bank or insurance company to receive a claim, is close to pointless.)
A settlement has been reached with the courts regarding this breach and, for most of us, the settlement will mean at least $125 for you if you file a claim. What you give up by accepting a settlement is the ability to sue if you can show that a loss of identity was caused by the Equifax breach. Proving this is going to be tough to do. Plus, most of us, because of other breaches, are already covered by identity protection and identity theft detection by other settlements. For example, most everyone is South Carolina is covered for a number of years due to a breach of the government databases. For more information and forms, read this:
- read this: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/equifax-data-breach-how-to-claim-125-right-now-in-the-ftc-settlement/
- or go directly here: https://secure.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/en/claim
But there’s a downside to this unexpected number of claims. First, though, the good: all 147 million people can ask for and get free credit monitoring. There’s also the option for people who certify that they already have credit monitoring to claim up to $125 instead. But the pot of money that pays for that part of the settlement is $31 million. A large number of claims for cash instead of credit monitoring means only one thing: each person who takes the money option will wind up only getting a small amount of money. Nowhere near the $125 they could have gotten if there hadn’t been such an enormous number of claims filed.
