You hear all about it when it happened back in fall of 2017, and now you’re suddenly hearing about it again: The Equifax Data Breach. The difference is, this time, we’re hearing about it because there is finally a settlement.
Back in September of 2017, Equifax revealed that there had been a data breach that exposed the personal information of $147 million people. You read that correctly: $147 MILLION. In July, Equifax reached a settlement where they agreed to pay up to $425 million to help people who have been affected by the data breach. If you are one of the millions of people whose data was compromised, you can be compensated up to $20,000. Realistically, most people will be eligible for a much smaller payout amount.
So the first thing you need to do is find out if you’ve been affected. The best way to do this is to go to equifaxbreachsettlement.com and check. It’s actually a pretty quick and easy process, you go to the site and enter some basic info, and from there it will tell you if you were affected or not.
If you WERE impacted, the next step would be to file a claim. For this, you will have 4 options:
- A choice between $125 cash payment or free credit monitoring.
- Reimbursement for time lost spent dealing with the data breach. You can claim up to 20 hours at $25 an hour.
- Partial reimbursement of up to 25% for fees paid for credit monitoring or identity theft protection.
- Reimbursement for monetary loss. This is for anyone who experienced fraud or loss as a result of the data breach.
So go and see if you were affected, and if so, you should definitely take advantage of the payouts. It’s important that companies like Equifax be held accountable for their wrongdoings, and honestly, the process for just the $125 payment is incredibly quick and easy.