From CNET: The Federal Trade Commission is encouraging people affected by the Equifax data breach to choose free credit monitoring over the $125 cash alternative. Why? Because you might actually end up getting "far less than $125."
The FTC on Wednesday said the public response to the $700 million settlement it reached with Equifax has been "overwhelming." The 2017 breach exposed 147 million consumers' personal information, including driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers and birth dates.
As part of the settlement, people impacted by the breach had the option to sign up for 10 years of free credit monitoring, or alternatively they could file a claim for $125 if they already had credit monitoring. The amount of money set aside for the cash payment option is "capped at $31 million," according to the FTC, so consumers who go with that option might not get the $125 they expected.
"A large number of claims for cash instead of credit monitoring means only one thing: Each person who takes the money option will wind up only getting a small amount of money," the FTC said in a blog post Wednesday. "Nowhere near the $125 they could have gotten if there hadn't been such an enormous number of claims filed."
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