MADISON, WI (WSAU) — Officials with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection are encouraging residents to see if they will benefit from the recently-announced settlement between Equifax and the FTC.
Trade and Consumer Protection Administrator Lara Sutherlin says it’s easy for consumers to find out if their information was compromised.
“[All they have to do] is go to the FTC.gov/equifax website to find out if they are an affected consumer, and to figure out if they should be submitting a claim under this settlement,” said Sutherlin.
All consumers have to do is enter the last six digits of their Social Security Number and last name to receive an instant decision. If they find out that they are affected, they’ll be taken directly to Equifax’s website to begin the claims process.
That will include up to ten years of free credit monitoring by Equifax or a $125 dollar payment. Additionally, if you spent any amount of time having to correct your credit report because your data was misused, Equifax will provide reimbursement for up to ten hours of work without documentation. If consumers can prove that the spent more than ten hours working to correct their credit report, Equifax will pay for that time as well.
Sutherlin says anyone looking to cash in from the settlement should make sure they do so through the proper Equifax web site. After entering your info on the FCC website, you’ll be taken to Equifax’s web site to be walked through the settlement process.
“Certainly, don’t click on any pop-ups, don’t respond to any unsolicited requests for your SSN, or any sort of phone calls or emails that say ‘you were an affected consumer from this breach, we are here to help you,'” Sutherlin says the FTC will not reach out to consumers directly when it comes to this matter. It is up to each consumer to decide if they will participate in the settlement on their own.
It should be noted that the payment option may not actually yield a $125 check for consumers. Equifax has set aside a $31 million pot of money for those payments. Meaning, if more than 248,000 people select the cash settlement option, the payment will likely be lower.
Also, consumers should know that by selecting to take the cash payment they give up their right to take any further action against Equifax should their identity be stolen in the future as a result of the data breach.
The incident stems from the September 2017 incident in which hackers gained access to personal data for over 147 million Americans by breaching Equifax’s servers. Latest estimates show roughly half of all Americans had some or all of their data exposed by the incident.
