My understanding was that the equifax settlement was for 6-700 million, yet this page indicates that there is only 31 million set aside to cover cash payouts to class members.
I'm curious about where the rest of the money went. Does anyone know?
I'm curious about where the rest of the money went. Does anyone know?
"Almost half the settlement — $300 million — will go toward American consumers who were harmed by the breach, according to settlement documents filed in federal court in Atlanta. The company also agreed to pay $275 million in fines to end investigations by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission and 48 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/business/equifax-settleme...
According to Equifax's FAQ:
"the total amount available for these alternative payments is $31 million"
So I'm wondering the same thing: what happened to the rest of the amount set aside for the victims, about $270 million?
---
EDIT: Interesting note in the article linked above:
If all 147 million victims of the breach were to take part, the monitoring services would cost Equifax more than $2 billion.
“If people want Equifax to pay more, sign up for credit monitoring,” said Norman E. Siegel, a lawyer representing consumers in the settlement.
Equifax's mess-up did damage to American citizens by exposing their information. Why isn't most, if not all, of the money going to them? "Fines to end investigations" just sounds like a bribe -- the government itself wasn't affected by this, and yet they are being paid as much as the people who were affected -- more so considering only the 31 million pot.
Its more like someone I dont know got a picture of me naked through my house window and now has that copy of a photo locked in their secret house that nobody knows about. Violated, yet. Exposed, eh. Literally nobody else besides the photographer ever saw me.
They're using the money for the public good.
The amount it costs to buy credit monitoring isn't how much it costs Equifax to actually do credit monitoring.
You'd include copies of dispute letters, police reports, receipts for monitoring services, legal expenses etc.
As far as we know, it has never been used in any way to assume anyone's identity or to steal any money.
Im kind of shocked at the HN community ignoring that the fact that the attack never lead to any public data leak.
Any time you spent disputing fraud or fixing identity theft, if submitted as part of this settlement, would be a lie, because you spent that time addressing data lost by someone else, not Equifax.
I agree, that reimbursing people for buying credit reporting they didnt need is the right thing to do. But thats it. Theres no other damage besides superfluous money spent and time wasted. These other categories of money (Besides time/credit reporting reimbursement) set aside, dont make any sense, because NOBODY has ANY evidence of damage, any any evidence people think they have, isnt related to Equifax.
So seems like the difference may be between those who just had data exposed in the breach (credit monitoring or small cash payment), vs those with additional provable damages from the breach (identity theft, damaged credit, dealing with damages/fallout from those, etc). Not saying I agree, just what I can see in settlement docs.
The FTC could really be communicating this all better here.
Edit: link to proposed settlement doc https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/172_3203_eq...
- Compensation for time spend ($25/hr); capped at 31 million (different pool from the $125)
- Reimbursement for up to $20,000 in documented losses per person.
- Cost of Experian credit monitoring for those who choose credit monitoring instead of the $125.
The size of the fund created for these benefits is $380.5 with the possibility of expanding by another $125 million for cash compensation.
[1] https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1484-proposed-equifa...