Each company creates a credit report about you, and then sells this report to businesses who are deciding whether to give you credit.Īmericans currently have no legal right to opt out of this data collection and trade. It tracks how many credit cards you have, how much money you owe, and how you pay your bills.
As one of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax collects and packages information about your credit, salary, and employment history. Of course, most of those earnings come from Equifax’s continued legal ability to buy and sell eye-popping amounts of financial and personal data on U.S. DOJ officials said the four men were responsible for carrying out the largest theft of sensitive personal information by state-sponsored hackers ever recorded.Įquifax surpassed Wall Street’s expectations in its most recent quarterly earnings: The company reported revenues of $1.24 billion for the quarter ending September 2022. Justice Department indicted four Chinese officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for perpetrating the 2017 Equifax hack. Tim Helming, security evangelist at, today flagged several new domains that mimic the name of the real Equifax Breach Settlement website and do not appear to be defensively registered by Equifax, including equifaxbreechsettlementcom, equifaxbreachsettlementbreachcom, and equifaxsettlementsco. The website for the settlement - also includes a lookup tool that lets visitors check whether they were affected by the breach it requires your last name and the last six digits of your Social Security Number.īut be aware that phishers and other scammers are likely to take advantage of increased public awareness of the payouts to snooker people. Successfully completing the card application requires accepting a prepaid MasterCard agreement (PDF).
#Equifax breach settlement status code#
If you received one of these settlement emails and are wary about clicking the included links (good for you, by the way), copy the redemption code and paste it into the search box at /redeem.
#Equifax breach settlement status how to#
Others said they got emails from the Equifax Breach Settlement domain that looked like an animated greeting card offering instructions on how to redeem a virtual prepaid card. Some readers shared copies of letters they got in the mail along with a paper check from the Equifax Breach Settlement Fund (see screenshot above). So far this week, KrebsOnSecurity has received at least 20 messages from readers seeking more information about these notices. Those who received higher amounts likely spent more time documenting actual losses and/or explaining how the breach affected them personally. How much each recipient receives appears to vary quite a bit, but probably most people will have earned a payment on the smaller end of that $125 scale - like less than $10. Those who did file a claim probably started receiving emails or other communications earlier this year from the Equifax Breach Settlement Fund, which has been messaging class participants about methods of collecting their payments. This was capped at 20 total hours at $25 per hour ($500), with total cash reimbursement payments not to exceed $20,000 per consumer. The settlement also offered reimbursement for the time you may have spent remedying identity theft or misuse of your personal information caused by the breach, or purchasing credit monitoring or credit reports.
Or, if you didn’t want to take advantage of the credit monitoring offers, you could opt for a cash payment of up to $125. In exchange for resolving all outstanding class action claims against it, Equifax in 2019 agreed to a settlement that includes up to $425 million to help people affected by the breach.Īffected consumers were eligible to apply for at least three years of credit monitoring via all three major bureaus simultaneously, including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Following a public breach response perhaps best described as a giant dumpster fire, the big-three consumer credit reporting bureau was quickly hit with nearly two dozen class-action lawsuits. In 2017, Equifax disclosed a massive, extended data breach that led to the theft of Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, addresses and other personal information on nearly 150 million people. One reader’s copy of their Equifax Breach Settlement letter.
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