Claim Your $125 Settlement from the 2017 Equifax Breach
In September of 2017, Equifax announced that it had experienced a data breach, which impacted the personal information of a staggering 147 million people! As the US Population was estimated to be 325 million in 2017, this represents almost half (45%) of the US!
Claim Your Equifax 2017 Data Breach $125 Cash Settlement
A federal court is considering a proposed class action settlement, that, if approved by the Court, would resolve lawsuits brought by consumers after the data breach.
If your personal data was impacted by the brief, you may be eligible for a cash payment of $125. You may also be eligible for:
- free credit monitoring
- other cash payments depending on
- your time spent
- your losses
- cost of credit / identity monitoring services
- free identity restoration services for 7 years
Equifax Data Breach Settlement Options including $125 Cash Payment
It only takes 30 seconds to check your eligibility and see if your data was affected. The quick online search only requires 2 items (your last name and the last 6 digits of your Social Security number).
If you were affected, you can easily File a Claim online to request either:
- Free Credit Monitoring
- a $125 Cash Payment (either paid by check or prepaid card)
NOTE that this program is available to every person in your household who was affected — make sure to check the eligibility of each family member!!
The initial claims period deadline is 1/22/2020, so make sure to file a claim by the deadline in order to receive your settlement!
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Note that Equifax denies any wrongdoing, and no judgment or finding of wrongdoing has been made.
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As this affected over 147 million people, please share with friends, family, and associates so that they may also receive their Equifax settlement benefits!
I am so grateful to you for bringing this to my attention. It’s something I’ve actually been wanting to do – get credit monitoring – and now you’ve offered me a way to get it for free for 12 months. Fantastic. Now I’m not excited that I came up affected because that’s actually scary to think about but at least now I have the peace of mind knowing that if my credit is touched I will get an alert. It’s super easy. I clicked file a claim and chose option 1 and got a confirmation. Thanks again. Super information.
Glad that you found it to be a quick an easy process to get that free 12 month credit monitoring!
Hi
I saw the Netflix documentary ‘The Great Hack’. The documentary was about data breaches that affected elections and social movements. Data was stolen from hundreds of millions of people. The company was Cambridge-Analytica. Is there a connection between the breaches in ‘The Great Hack’ and this settlement?
I realize that only USA citizens can claim on this settlement, however, being a citizen of a country who is also being targeted by data theft, is there any settlements going on outside the USA?
I am grateful that you would offer this recourse, I am shocked at these companies’ blatant disregard for people’s privacy.
regards
Aaron
Hi Aaron, I have had other friends mention the movie The Great Hack as something that we all need to see. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds like it’s a real eye-opener that we all need to be aware of. I do plan to watch it soon – thanks for the reminder!
I’m not aware of actions in other countries, but people have been succesfully suing Equifax in the US small claims courts for “small” amounts in the $8,000 range since the month the breach was announced (September 2017).
It seems that the best way to stop this from happening is to make it very costly for those who are careless with our information. Every single person who files a claim against them will help to safeguard our data against future breaches.
Hi, your review about how to claim $125 settlement from the 2017 Equifax Breach is very informative actually am not affected but i have friends who are affected your post is very helpful as it serve as an awareness i will share the information of your post on my social media so that those that are affected can be aware about it.
I’m glad to hear you weren’t personally affected, but thanks so much for sharing!!
I think this is a good decision. Many companies are misusing our data’s and they just get away with it. Maybe what is happening to Equifax today will be a warning for others. They will start asking for approval before they use our datas as they want.
I am really glad that you took the time to make a post about it. People will get the opportunity to know about this decision and check their eligibility and claim their money.
Thanks
I hope it serves as a lesson to all companies to take great care to secure customer data… it is especially good for Equifax to be penalized, as one of their lines of business was selling a service to protect people’s personal data!!
I am not in the United States so this does not affect me but it makes me wonder if there is ever such a thing in Canada. Obviously there are breaches in Canada as well but I am wondering if they ever try to compensate individuals who are affected?
What are some ways that an individual can help to prevent such things from happening? Or are we at a loss to these companies and the security measures they take?
While this settlement was by a US court, Equifax has stated that over 19,000 Canadians were affected by the data breach as well. With any luck, Equifax will be proactive in other parts of the world and offer restitution before it’s forced to do so by a court of law.
The toughest part of this case is that Equifax was actually selling services to people to protect their data from security breaches!! Part of the current US settlement is that they must offer refunds to anyone who was paying for those completely ineffective services.
This is a great opportunity for people that are affected to quickly claim their entitlement. Am not affected but I have friends and close relative who are affected. Though I shared from their grieve when it happened back then in the year 2017. Therefore, I won’t hesitate to inform them about this news. Am glad the deadline is still far behind, so they can do that any time soon. Thanks for this awareness.
Stay blessed!
Hi Stella, I’m glad you were not personally affected but thanks so much for sharing with your friends and family!
Hello there!
This is a great and informative article.
I checked the link provided against snopes and it is legit. Currently, most people know about the breach but don’t realize that there is a class-action lawsuit. However, it is not only necessary to know these things, but to hold Equifax accountable for their lax security. I will share this post with my friends. Because we all need to stay vigilant with our data.
Thanks for good advice. 🙂
Harber, I absolutely agree. The best way for Equifax to understand the importance and seriousness of these careless data breaches, is to hold them accountable with financial penalties. It is nice that the people affected by the Equifax data breach will actually get a cash payout.
Thanks for your post. It is very kind of you informing us this. I typed my information, last name and last 6 digits of my social security number, in the form. I was affected. I filled further form and reached section 2, cash payment/time spent. But I didn’t spent time trying to recover from fraud or identity theft caused by the data breach.
At this moment, I don’t have document to support the time I spent on my case. I guess I could not continue my filing. Do you have any suggestions on this?
It is kind of you sharing this useful information with us.
Hi Anthony, If you spent extra time or money to fight the impacts of the Equifax data breach, then it may be enough to just write and describe the time you spent, the actions that you took, and the total financial impact. Go ahead and fully fill out the extra compensation form to the best of your ability — it should guide you towards any additional documents that may be needed.
Thanks for writing this up. I just checked but thankfully my information wasn’t affected, but 140+ million people is a lot. I actually know a few people who were affected by this, so I’ll have to tell them they can file a claim. I’m going to share this post with as many people as I can. I bet there’s a ton of people who still have no clue there’s this settlement.
HI Nate, The settlement was just announced so the word is still getting out. Thank you for sharing with your network — I bet that most of them will be happy to hear they could be eligible for $125 cash payment!
I really appreciate you for sharing this article,to claim the cash,It only takes 30 seconds to check your eligibility and see if your data was affected. The quick online search only requires 2 items (your last name and the last 6 digits of your Social Security number).I will take note of this statement for proper filling,wow! this is a good news,this information is great and you will surely move highly in online business.Thanks
Hi Abayomi, You are most welcome for the information. Thanks for joining the conversation!
With that, I wonder if $125 is enough to cover the expenses or any damage someone incur from the said breech. And that’s just “a penny” compared to the amount of money lost by someone who was literally affected by the breech. In fact, in a person to person settlement, amounts are usually in several hundreds to thousands of dollars. The government should raise the amount to something fair and just.
Hi Gomer, You are right — the costs can be much higher when someone is affected by a personal data breach.
The $125 is the minimum amount that people affected by the Equifax data breach can get. If someone had other costs or losses, then the form allows for them to document their activities and financial burdens and ask for up to $20,000 plus credit monitoring plus identity restoration services!
Wow, this is a great article! While this breach did not affect me directly, I see that it affected others who had no idea that they were entitled to this money. It’s good to get on a platform and spread the information to the masses because normal people could be leaving money on the table and had no idea it was theirs.
I had someone contact me a few years ago saying that they could help me recover $2000 that was owed to me and I just needed to pay a little bit to hire them to do it. I thought it was a hoax at first, so I looked it up in the city records and it was true.
But when I do research, I try to get it done for free.
It turned out that I could recover the money myself, and I didn’t need the aid of the person who contacted me, they are usually hired by people who don’t want to go through the process but it was really simple, I think they make it seem like it’s complicated when it’s not.
Anyway, thanks for providing this info, I hope it reaches more people!
Hi Ibrahim, people affected by the Equifax data breach do NOT need to pay anyone to help them file a claim for the $125 cash settlement. It’s a simple form that you can fill out online by yourself.
It’s good to hear that you were not personally affected by the data breach though!
Hi Alyce! Thank you for your very useful post. I’m glad we have plenty of time to claim and receive our settlement. January 22nd; 2020 is still a few months away and reading about all this now has been very convenient. I like they’re open to the option of paying by check and not only limited to the prepaid card.
Hi Henry, It is nice that there are still months left in signup window, but I’d recommend that you go ahead and file your claim right away. If you aren’t requesting additional compension past the $125 cash settlement, then it really is a short process with no documentation required. You don’t want to wait and accidentally miss the signup window!
What an incredible website Alyce, I’m enjoying the content and finding a lot that is relevant even for people like me in New Zealand. I found it hard to stop navigating around your website so many excellent products and offers. I enjoyed the Ice Cream Day post I had no idea, and I wouldn’t feel guilty buying Ice Cream on that day.
Many Blessings
Hi JW, Thanks for visiting and joining the conversation!
Hi.
Thanks for this information – the links lead me to where they were intended and the process was quick!
You are providing a service that is important not only by those affected but by those who will be protected now that this is out and Equifax pays, which will drive some change with all three credit reporting agencies.
Thank you
Cheers, and take care of yourself!
John
Hi John, I agree that a bit of punishment for these agencies is necessary in order to incentivize them to take better care of our personal information.
Wow! This is a great article with precise and concise information. The 2017 Equifax breach affected me as I found my details to be after I checked through the link provided here and I would never have known that there is a lawsuit that would help in staking a claim to a cash reward. This could really go viral if helped to project and I would share this post to all my social media platforms to get as many as possible sensitized over this opportunity. Cheers
Rodger
Hi Rodger, With any luck, all of the people who were affected by the Equifax data breach will at least get a cash settlement for the trouble. It’s such a hassle to deal with identity theft, but at least the Equifax claim process is quick and easy!
Thank you, this is a great article. I found out that I was affected by the Equifax breach and applied for the $125 cash settlement.
Most people know about the breach but don’t know there is a class action lawsuit.
This is a very short and sweet article that if it could go viral would help a lot of people.
On the other hand the potential for these things happening should open our eyes to the possibility of ongoing cyber crimes. Thanks for keeping your readers apprised of rewards they may not have been aware they were eligible for.
Doug
Thanks Doug, the settlement was just proposed this week, and I do believe having this knowledge could help a lot of people. I’m sorry to hear that you were affected by the data breach, but happy to hear that you were able to apply for the cash settlement.