
Consumers who sought cash settlement from Equifax probably won't get full $125 - rahuldottech
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/court-awards-80-million-to-consumer-attorneys-in-equifax-case.html
======
mrosett
This headline is dishonest. I’m not getting my $125 because the settlement
fund is dramatically too small. It looks like I’ll get about $6. If the
attorneys got absolutely nothing, that number would be maybe $8. So attorney
fees are <2% of the shortfall.

I’m not pumped that Equifax is getting off for less than a half billion or
that the attorneys are getting a big chunk of that. (It’s hard to say how much
they should get, to be honest) But when I see a bullshit headline I have to
call it out.

By the way, they based the $125 on the assumption that almost everyone would
take the worthless credit monitoring option.

~~~
okcando
What I find especially bothersome is that their resolution has, in practice,
only cost their victims more.

Because the time needed to fill out that form and provide the documents will
have been worth more than the payout, if one ever comes, for just about anyone
who bothered to do it.

Not at all satisfactory.

~~~
nwallin
I honestly, no bullshit, wish the hackers had simply released the entire
dataset. Just drop kicked it into the the public domain.

It would have been the greatest thing ever. This dumb ass bullshit system of
credit reporting would have dissolved overnight. Instead we're stuck with the
worst of all worlds. Our information is completely fucked, and we're the ones
expected to protect it. And we're not even permitted to have proper tools to
protect ourselves.

~~~
libria
I totally get your sentiment about it forcing reform. What would replace it
though?

Risk assessment is a valid concern for lenders. Diligent payers should be
rewarded.

~~~
cinquemb
I don't think the lending industry would go away with a leak, though I do
think that more players with the ability to analyze the data could have come
along and used the data set to lower the costs of lending and/or incentivized
other systems of data collection/risk analysis and underwriting.

Though I do think it would have hurt the bottom line of the giants that have
few incentives to innovate, and many incentives to maintain the way things
are.

------
danShumway
The point wasn't for me to get a lot of money. The point was for Equifax to
_lose money_.

Look, I'll badmouth lawyers as much as the next person, but anyone who wants
to claim class actions are a mistake needs to come up with a better system
before they trash this one. There are so few avenues for consumers to hold
companies accountable right now. They just don't exist. And thanks to
arbitration and class action bans in EULAs, even the few avenues we do have
are getting gradually eroded.

So _first_ make regulatory penalties stricter, _first_ set up real
consequences for CEOs and boards. Then we can talk about revising class
actions. I'm not satisfied with someone saying, "theoretically this could be
better." Make the alternative systems better _first_ , and then we'll talk
about throwing away what we currently have. Like, holy crap, how short sighted
can CNBC be? There are no working alternatives in the US to class actions
right now.

The tragedy isn't that the lawyers took 20% of 380 million dollars. The
tragedy is that it was only 380 million dollars. I'd happily trade another
25-50% on top of the current lawyer take if they had gotten that total up to
750 million, or even a billion.

~~~
RangerScience
Laywers get 20% of the restitution costs, on top of the restitution costs.

If the courts deem that the resulting costs to the defendant are too low,
additional amounts may be levied and given to relevant charities, or the ACLU
(or things like it).

If the company would collapse due to the costs, or otherwise would be unable
to pay the full costs, executive bonuses (and potentially some pay, with
limits) may be reclaimed, both towards allowing payment, and preventing
failure in "too big to fail" situations.

I miss anything?

People get restitution. Lawyers get rewarded for quality work. Companies both
pay damages, and a penalty on top of damages. Executives bear responsibility
as people, not just the corporate entity.

~~~
danShumway
Off the top of my head, I'd have no issue with this. Sounds great,
particularly in how it would expand the ways we could hold executives
personally responsible.

The request I would make is, "can we build a real, working version of the
system you propose before we get rid of the existing one?" I'm not eager to
throw away what we have on the promise that we could build something great
afterwards.

The annoyance I feel when I read articles like this is that it's a bunch of
reporters saying, "we need to do something about lawyers", and I just feel
like -- if I'm in a leaky lifeboat, don't tell me to jump out of it until you
have another boat next to me that I can climb into. We all know the lifeboat
has leaks, but this lifeboat is real, and yours is (at least for now)
imaginary.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I don't think anyone here is proposing we get rid of class action lawsuits.
People are annoyed because they think the class action isn't _enough_.

------
rahuldottech
Also, let us not forget, _Equifax execs sold stock before hack was disclosed_

[https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-
ins...](https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/08/investing/equifax-stock-insider-
sales-hack-data-breach/index.html)

> Three Equifax executives sold shares of the credit-reporting company worth
> nearly $2 million shortly after a massive data breach was discovered.

~~~
cfitz
...insider trading? If there’s not an investigation into these “executives”
already underway, there should be.

~~~
reilly3000
How do we turn ‘should be’ into reality?

From a tech perspective I feel like issues like this should have a public
canonical ID. That would help regulators and reporters alike deliver
information in a more clear, cost effective and accountable manner,
disambiguation by default. Interested and affected parties could subscribe to
updates on that key across the web.

------
dznodes
Andrew Yang should campaign on making Equifax pay for data pollution. In fact,
every one of these "data breaches" should be treated like the BP Oil spill. If
these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then they
shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place.

If it cost them as much to clean up each spill as it cost BP, you better
believe they would take better care not to let it happen again.

~~~
boring_twenties
> If these companies can't be held accountable for protecting our data then
> they shouldn't be allowed to collect it in the first place.

It's so sad that this is even remotely controversial. Equifax should have
gotten the same treatment as Arthur Andersen.

~~~
thephyber
From my reactive, emotional side, I would argue yes.

From my rational, informed side, I would argue no. Here's my rationale.

The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market and hasn't
been actively used, which suggests this was a nation-state using the data for
something other than profiting from fraud. This also suggests that the hack
could easily be considered an "act of war", so given enough
time+effort+resources, no company would likely be able to resist that breach
(although I know Equifax could have done FAR better than they did).

Technically I don't "own" the data that Equifax has about me. Equifax owns the
collection of it, their reporters (ex retailers, landlords, bank/mortgage
companies) each own a shard, and other data aggregators who contract with any
one of these actors can own part/all of it.

I am not Equifax's customer. They are required to deal with me based on a few
rules defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the FCRA also provides
some protections for credit reporting agencies who don't violate those rules.
I'm sure they minimize the effort/resources they devote to helping credit
consumers because that is the profit motive of every company.

I'm sure Equifax has a ridiculous EULA/ToS that I probably implicitly agreed
to when I used the AnnualCreditReport website, and probably additionally when
I deal with any retailer that pulled credit reports from Equifax (including
the IRS _after_ the breach was revealed). It likely involved me signing away
my rights to a class action litigation or my rights to a trial by jury,
because that is par for large contemporary corporations.

The standard for "protecting consumer data" is remarkably low except in a few
sectors (ex. healthcare, retailers storing credit card data), and even in
those it's still disheartening. The problem here is that companies can easily
argue to {regulators, judges/juries, their BoD, cybersecurity vendors} that
they can't be expected to spend more than the industry average because that
hurts them more than the competitors. This just becomes a Prisoner's Dilemma
where our data's security becomes the victim to corporate (in this case credit
reporting bureau) self-interested decision making.

~~~
ddsea
> The data stolen from Equifax has not shown up on the black market

 _Yet_ \- and also the absence of evidence doesn't mean the evidence of
absence. Not all criminals are stupid, a smart one would wait till vigilance
dies down.

~~~
nerdponx
Or it's already been distributed/used/sold, albeit not as a single large leak
of data.

------
reillyse
Class actions are broken and rarely actually directly benefit the consumers.
At best you can say it is a large club that can be wielded on behalf of
consumers to force large corporations to behave responsibly. At worst it's a
total racket where attorneys can get very very rich by "representing"
consumers and shaking down large corporations, which will eventually end up
being paid for by the consumers who were meant to be protected in the first
place.

I think the USA needs stronger regulators who can actually enforce the laws
using fines and lawsuits rather than the legal system which does not work.

~~~
Ididntdothis
From what I have read stuff like this is also high risk for the lawyers who
may be working on this for years without getting paid. I agree that regulators
should go after these companies and also prosecutors instead of putting people
in jail for years for possession of marijuana.

~~~
reillyse
1) regulators don't lock people up for marijuana use. 2) We would save Lawyers
the risk of not getting paid if they didn't have the chance of getting paid.
Expressed with less sarcasm, there is no shortage of lawyers coming out of the
woodwork to start class action suits when something happens. Every time
anything big happens there is a half dozen class actions that get filed
straight away, then there is lots of overhead figuring out who's class action
is the correct one and combining lawsuits, and all this "work" is only to the
benefit of the attorneys filing the lawsuits not to the actual people they are
claiming to represent. Anyway, it's rotten to the core.

~~~
reillyse
Apparently over 50 different law firms decided that Equifax was worth the
risk. [https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-
lawsuits/](https://money.com/equifax-data-breach-lawsuits/)

------
akouri
Equifax has made more money after the hack now that they are selling their
credit monitoring as a service.

I went to their website trying to figure out how to lock my credit report
(which US govt mandated be a free thing to do) only to learn that in order to
use the "free" option you have to go through hours of phone trees, or write in
snail mail.

If you want the ability to lock the report online or via an app, you have to
pay ~$20/mo to Equifax. Total BS, and of course I wouldn't put it past this
company to make money off their own data leak.

~~~
davidjade
Equifax muddies the water here with “lock” vs “freeze” terminology on their
web site. One costs money and one is free. The free is the mandated government
version, which is a lock but I think they call it a freeze and can be done
online. I’ve done it recently. It’s a really deceptive and dark pattern as
they try and steer you Towards their paid version.

------
paggle
This is actually a good thing. The more lawyers get to suckle at the teat of
class actions, the more class actions they will file, which will have a
deterrent effect on corporate malfeasance even if there is no restitution to
the victims.

~~~
Karunamon
The proliferation of binding arbitration provisions in contracts of adhesion
puts a dent in that, sadly.

------
rahuldottech
> It’s also one more reason why the consumers who sought a cash settlement
> from Equifax won’t be getting the full $125 as initially expected.

> In fact, consumers were never going to get $125, ... “That’s down to $6 or
> $7 [per consumer] now. Maybe even less than that,”

That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> That's what all your personal information and your identity is worth. $6.

That's not how much it's worth, that's just how much Equifax was able to
corruptly negotiate to pay for losing it.

If you really want to know how much it's worth, you could probably compute a
reasonable estimate by taking all the money the credit bureaus from your
credit file, and divide that by the number of credit files.

~~~
rahuldottech
Let me rephrase. $6 is what your personal information and identity is valued
at by corporations.

~~~
ljm
It would be $0 and probably covered up if the corporation had the choice.

~~~
setr
If they had a choice, it'd be considered a burden and a tax write-off :-)

------
ch33zer
I just got a settlement check in Lovelace v Global Payments Inc
([http://lovelacesettlement.com/](http://lovelacesettlement.com/)). The grand
total? 20 cents. Read the FAQ, it's fascinating: $540,000 total from the
company -$135,000 lawyers fees -$2,500 settlement representative (whatever
that is) -$164,224 to distribute the payment \----- $233,276 for clients.

I have no idea how much the company made by charging transaction fees on
credit card payments for student loans (that's what they're accused of) but
they got off with a slap on the wrist. They should have been required to give
back ALL the money they made. Fucking scammers.

~~~
pishpash
Settlement representative is the plantiff representing the class?

------
thinkloop
> It turned out that the money set aside in the roughly $380 million
> restitution fund specifically for cash compensation was capped at $31
> million

I can't parse this, how can a $380m fund be capped at $31m, isn't that a $31m
fund?

~~~
iudqnolq
I think they're including the value of the credit monitoring they offered
people in that

~~~
chatmasta
Which is utterly insane considering it’s a near 100% margin business for them.
The breach was basically a funnel into their free trial of credit monitoring.

------
tombert
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding about class action suits
_rarely_ benefit anyone but the lawyers; isn't the whole point to hurt the
corporations where it hurts?

~~~
TylerE
In theory, yes.

In practice, as usual, they're getting fined $5 for stealing $100, so not
really.

------
hendersoon
That's fine, I'm more interested in punishing companies for poor behavior than
getting a couple bucks in my pocket.

------
thrower123
I made sure to give as little information as possible when trying to apply for
this settlement. I have no faith that that information will be secured, so
we'll be doing this again in a year or two.

------
OrgNet
now I'm "happy" I chose the credit monitoring option...

------
bsimpson
I feel weirdly vindicated that I didn't bother making a claim.

------
sabujp
that's why i went with the credit monitoring in the end

------
droithomme
Cool, I just won a $200 bet with a friend of mine that these capricious
bastards and the corrupt courts weren't going to do right AS ALWAYS.

