Equifax Data Breach Settlement Update | How You Can Claim $125 if Affected
In September of 2017, Equifax announced a data breach that exposed the personal information of over 140 million people!
As a result of this data breach, Equifax has agreed to a global settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 U.S. states and territories and this settlement includes up to $425 million to help anyone affected by the data breach!
Although you cannot file a claim just yet, people affected by the breach will be able to request the following once the claims process begins:
- Free Credit Monitoring and Identity Theft Protection Services – up to 10 years of free credit monitoring OR
$125 if you decide not to enroll because you already have credit monitoring(no longer an option) - Cash Payments (capped at $20,000 per person) – for expenses you paid as a result of the breach, like losses from unauthorized charges to your accounts, the cost of credit monitoring etc
- Free Help Recovering from Identity Theft
- Free Credit Reports for all U.S. consumers – starting in 2020, get 6 additional free credit reports per year for 7 years from the Equifax website.
What can you do right now?
- Sign up HERE to get email updates about this settlement.
- The claims process will start after court approval. Bookmark and check this page for updates.
- Save any documents you have related to your efforts to avoid or recover from identity theft after the 2017 Equifax data breach.
How can you find out if you were affected?
Following
Yes, I was wondering as well.
Same.
Hi there! You can find out if your information has been impacted once the Claims Site goes live. They will provide a tool to use in order to check.
Hope that helps!
Hopefully H2S will post when it goes live and how to Ck if you were affected.
You bet! Thanks for the request, Laurie! I’ll be sure to pass that along to the team!
You can check here: https://eligibility.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/en/eligibility
Wouldn’t some people still possibly be affected in the future by this breach but may not be affected right now? Considering the information could be used at a later date. Just thinking.
I’m thinking the same exact thing. The thieves have all the pertinent information to open accounts in your name at any time they wish, or to sell your information to others who may do so. Equifax accepted money from customers for the precise purpose of protecting their data. Equifax totally failed. When they discovered the breach they sat on the information, not notifying their customers. They continued to charge them for fake monitoring. I at least want all the money I paid them for years of fake “protection”. And free 10 years of monitoring? Do they think we are stupid? They should be paying us so we can pay honest monitoring services.
To make a claim (for up to $20,000) you apparently have to show that THIS breach caused YOUR identity theft issue. That’s apparently impossible because the Equifax data has never been sold on the dark web — it’s believed by experts to be a state-level intrusion by a foreign government. That part of the settlement is hyperspace that no one will ever be able to reach, from what I’ve been reading in legal analysis of the settlement.
I am not seeing a link to see if were affected.
Hi Brandy! It appears you will need to wait for the Claims Site to go live, and then you will be able to use the tool provided to check. Hoping that helps!
I would suggest for everyone to freeze their credit (kids too) It’s now free on all 3 credit bureaus. If you freeze your credit no one can steal your identity. It’ll take an extra step when you apply for credit, but so worth it!
I was just thinking the same thing. Good suggestion!
Yes freeze all 3 bureaus just to be safe. It only takes a few minutes to temporarily lift it when you need to apply for something.
I forgot I had them freezes and was able to lift them for a few days span in minutes at a store.
How do you freeze 🥶 it
Yes, how do you freeze them?
U put all your cc in a container..fill in with water…then put in the freezer… your welcome..
You can look it up individually at all the three major credit card companies websites. When I did it, equifax was free (as they should be after this fiasco) but I had to pay around $15 for each of the other two. They give you a code to unfreeze when you need to unfreeze. Do NOT lose the code. We did this for my husband and I and it was fairly easy. I just recently unfroze my account for a few days and that was really easy too.
It’s actually free now as a result of a Federal law change due to the EquiFax breach.
So, someone in HR where my dad works compromised employee info through a phishing scam (great HR, huh?). Anyway, they singed everyone up for this monitoring as a courtesy. Now they’ve all been told their info was compromised AGAIN. My dad is old school and so angry. I, on the other hand, find it pretty ironic that the Equifax monitoring was setup to protect them and now this! HA!
Yeah. Just tell him to freeze his credit. At this point it’s the only thing you can do to try to protect yourself.
As someone who did have their identity stolen, I recommend Lifelock. They’ve caught numerous new credit card attempts, loan attempts, and even caught my email being shared on the dark web 😱
I’m very careful with my credit information and about 6 weeks after the breech I got a change of address in the mail saying that my address had been changed to Florida when I live in Kansas. From there I found out that they tried to reroute my mail so they could get a new credit card sent to them. They also tried opening 7 different credit cards and I’ve had multiple other problems. I called the police department in Florida and they told me that there was nothing they could do because they use hoax addresses. I asked them to check it out because there was a credit card of mine headed that way, they didn’t. I also called the post office down there over 30 times and I only got people to answer twice and they just hung up on me. I called my local post office and they put their internal investigation crew on it. I had to stop the change of address but it had already gone through the system so all the companies that use the change of address information to update your information already changed my address as well. Including Costco who sent my new card and rebate checks to Florida. The post office said that someone had hand written the change of address form and turned it in. I asked the police department in Florida if that was a federal offence since it was in a post office. They told me the only way they could take action if they walked into a bank and tried to cash a check or something similar. I had to get a local police report to get the bureaus to freeze my credit for free even though my local city had no jurisdiction and couldn’t do anything about it. I opened a claim with the federal government and continued to update my case and it went absolutely nowhere. I’ve talked to many credit card companies to shut down the false credit cards and I’ve put extra passwords on all the credit cards I currently have did that they can’t get through to change anything. I’ve been told multiple times that the theifs will stop for a little while until you think you’re in the clear and will either try again or sell your information to someone else. It has been a total headache and nightmare. A measly $125 is nothing for the time and energy I’ve had to put into all of this. When it first happened I checked their site and it said I could have been compromised but it said my husband wasn’t. What a nightmare this has been. Lock down your credit. It’s not worth it. As others have said, lock your kids’ credit as well.
Sign up is now open!!!
Oh great! Thanks so much for the heads up!