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Were You Affected by Equifax Data Breach? You Could Have $125 Coming

By Laura Tucker
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Many, many people were shocked two years ago to learn of the Equifax data breach. This was one of the largest ever breaches and affected millions of individuals with an estimate at one point of nearly 150 million people.

If you are one of that very large group of people affected by the 2017 Equifax data breach, you may have some money coming to you. You can submit a claim, file to recover your expenses from trying to protect your identity, or claim a $125 check if you already signed up for credit monitoring because you were worried about the hack.

Equifax Settlement

In 2017 there was a huge data breach of Equifax, a consumer credit reporting agency. The company collects information on over 800 million people and over 88 million businesses. Suddenly two years ago, these people were told their personal information, including driver’s license information and birthdates, had been stolen.

The Federal Trade Commission reached an agreement this week with Equifax. The company agreed to pay between $575 million and $700 million in compensation to people who were affected when their personal information was exposed in the hack.

To reap your rewards, or rather to be compensated some or all of what you lost, you can file a claim for your costs in recovering from the breach. This includes fees associated with your identity theft as well as unauthorized charges to your accounts.

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Additionally, you can submit a claim to be reimbursed for the cost of protecting yourself after the breach or file a claim to get a $125 check if you are already having your credit monitored.

If you are unsure of whether you are included in the nearly 150 million people who were affected, this site allows you to input your last name and last six digits of your social security number. I was astounded to see both my husband and myself were affected. Since I have my parents’ social security numbers, I checked them as well. My mother was not involved in it, but my father was.

If you were affected, you need to collect the documents showing how you were affected and submit your claim to be reimbursed. The deadline for submitting your claim is January 22, 2020. You can find out more on how to apply for a settlement benefit at this website.

Some Will Never Be Recouped

Some of the losses will never be recouped. While I am included as someone whose data was breached, I suffered no “known” losses. I did not appear to lose any money and didn’t know until now that I was even included.

But while I didn’t lose money, unknown parts of my identity are floating around somewhere in a hack. I have no idea what they learned about me, whether it’s my birthdate, driver’s license number, address, etc. We had a known hack of our information when someone tried to submit a tax refund in our name and knew our addresses and social security numbers, but that was before the Equifax breach.

Were you affected by the Equifax data breach? Will you be able to file to be reimbursed or get a $125 settlement check? Jump into the comments below and tell us how you were affected.

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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