On Thursday, September 7, 2017, the Atlanta-based credit bureau, Equifax, announced that hackers had potentially compromised the sensitive information of 143 million American consumers from a cyberattack that occurred between May and July of 2017. With Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, credit card information, addresses, and birthdates exposed to potential identity thieves, the Equifax data breach has affected an estimated 44% of the American population—meaning that you might be one of the millions of Americans affected by this data breach and eligible for a cash settlement.
With the recent surge of consumer worry regarding the Equifax data breach, they have introduced a temporary solution: the company is offering a one-year trial of its TrustedID product, providing the opportunity to sign-up for free identity theft protection and credit file monitoring on its website. However, there’s a catch. By registering for this product and agreeing to TrustedID Premier’s lengthy terms of service, customers are forfeiting their right to join a class action lawsuit in a court of law and right to a jury trial in exchange for use of the credit protection product, and after the one-year trial-period, customers will be charged “an unspecified amount” unless they go through with the cancellation process.
The same day the cyberattack was announced, a class action lawsuit against Equifax was filed in federal court in Atlanta. The federal class action lawsuit claims that Equifax executives sold “hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock” prior to going public with the data breach and seeks “as-yet-unspecified damages for negligence, violations of federal Fair Credit Reporting Act laws and Georgia’s Fair Business Practices Act statutes”.
Akin & Tate has experience in major national class action law suits concerning data breaches, with attorney W. Matthew Wilson serving as part of the leadership team in the class actions against Home Depot’s 2014 major national data breach. In that suit, he helped recover $27 million on behalf of customers included in this settlement. Contact Akin & Tate today if you are a victim of the 2017 Equifax data breach.CONTACT AKIN & TATE.
To determine if you’re one of the millions of Americans affected by the 2017 Equifax data breach and entitled to a settlement award, please click here and fill out the brief form.