Equifax's Stock Rose More Than 50% In 2019 (nasdaq.com) 40
"There's still time to file a claim for a share of the $425 million that Equifax agreed to cough up after hosing almost half of the country in its massive data breach a few years ago," writes a Pennyslvania newspaper columnist, pointing victims to equifaxbreachsettlement.com.
"But unless you can prove you were an identity theft victim who lost money, or had to waste time cleaning up the mess, don't expect much of a payout. Victims are being hosed again." The breach affected an estimated 147 million Americans. Hackers exploited a known but unpatched website vulnerability and gained access to names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver's license numbers and credit card numbers. Facing lawsuits from federal and state consumer protection agencies, Equifax agreed to a settlement. It offered several ways for people to file claims, with a deadline of Jan. 22.
The option that applies to most people is 10 years of free credit monitoring, or a cash payout of up to $125 for those who already have monitoring. But you aren't going to get anywhere near $125. The settlement called for a pot of only $31 million for those payouts. And based on the number of people who have applied, that's not enough to cover the maximum payment. You may not even get enough to buy a decent sandwich, according to Ted Frank, director of litigation for Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, which includes the Center for Class Action Fairness. "That's down to $6 or $7 now," Frank told CNBC in December. "Maybe even less than that."
Frank spoke after the federal judge overseeing the settlement awarded $77.5 million of the $425 million settlement fund to the attorneys who represented consumers against Equifax. His organization had opposed that award as being too much.
Meanwhile, the Motley Fool notes that in 2019 Equifax's stock rose 50.5% -- after dropping 21% in 2018 and remaining "relatively flat" in 2017.
"The credit-reporting company's stock rose thanks to a series of earnings beats and with the shadow of the big 2017 data breach receding further into the rear view...."
"But unless you can prove you were an identity theft victim who lost money, or had to waste time cleaning up the mess, don't expect much of a payout. Victims are being hosed again." The breach affected an estimated 147 million Americans. Hackers exploited a known but unpatched website vulnerability and gained access to names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver's license numbers and credit card numbers. Facing lawsuits from federal and state consumer protection agencies, Equifax agreed to a settlement. It offered several ways for people to file claims, with a deadline of Jan. 22.
The option that applies to most people is 10 years of free credit monitoring, or a cash payout of up to $125 for those who already have monitoring. But you aren't going to get anywhere near $125. The settlement called for a pot of only $31 million for those payouts. And based on the number of people who have applied, that's not enough to cover the maximum payment. You may not even get enough to buy a decent sandwich, according to Ted Frank, director of litigation for Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, which includes the Center for Class Action Fairness. "That's down to $6 or $7 now," Frank told CNBC in December. "Maybe even less than that."
Frank spoke after the federal judge overseeing the settlement awarded $77.5 million of the $425 million settlement fund to the attorneys who represented consumers against Equifax. His organization had opposed that award as being too much.
Meanwhile, the Motley Fool notes that in 2019 Equifax's stock rose 50.5% -- after dropping 21% in 2018 and remaining "relatively flat" in 2017.
"The credit-reporting company's stock rose thanks to a series of earnings beats and with the shadow of the big 2017 data breach receding further into the rear view...."
I’m gonna write a license (Score:3)
Re: I’m gonna write a license (Score:1)
That'll teach em.
Don't just focus on Equifax (Score:4, Informative)
Take it from an ex-industry insider that's worked with all of them, it's not just Equifax you want to worry about, Experian is at least as bad, and in my experience TransUnion is the worst out the lot.
In fact, I'll even go as far as to give Equifax some credit - they have at least learnt their lesson from getting caught out and have started listening to IT staff and properly funding their operations. The other two haven't yet had to learn the lesson the hard way and so continue to penny pinch on IT in the way that created the conditions for the Equifax breach in the first place.
I'm aware for example of some SQL injection attacks in software that TransUnion sells to it's customers that despite me having raised multiple times in the last decade and having provided fixes for still wasn't addressed last I checked around 18 months ago, and is still unlikely addressed to this very day. The injection attack in question allows for an attacker to inject admin user credentials into the system and subsequently acquire all stored personal data and credit information giving much the same type, if not even more detailed data than was acquired from Equifax.
Re: (Score:3)
I had a gym membership long ago. Got a special student rate, and had the generous cancellation terms explained and literally highlighted in the contract I signed. They changed the terms (illegally in my view), so I cancelled. The gym (not to remain nameless out of protection of them, but it was long enough ago, and they were a now defunct single-site gym that I don't remember the name of them and it doesn't matter)
Re: (Score:2)
as a country you're gullible enough to fall for arguments about how giving you more privacy or consumer protection is communism
Nope. It's abortion. If you are allowed privacy of your private information, then the state can't compel your doctor to tell your pastor, father and baby daddy when you are pregnant, in an attempt to make sure some man in your life locks you in the basement until you give birth, to make sure you don't get a chance to consider abortion. Everything is communism, but "privacy" has become synonymous with "abortion" in the US
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
When credit ratings of the entire population are impacted by the relative ratings of those who were exposed in the breach, no they couldn't do that. This breach impacts at the very least all US citizens, but likely also impacts other nations as well.
The fact that they earned more in "credit protection" after the fact than they lost in fines and settlements is still clearly absurd.
Re:to put this into better perspective. (Score:4, Informative)
>Equifax's revenue in 2017 was 3.36 billion. They could pay out a million dollars to every person affected by the breach, and still be sitting around with 3.358 billion dollars.
Dude you've got your units WAY wrong. 147 million times one million $ is a hundred and forty-seven TRILLION dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: to put this into better perspective. (Score:1)
Lawyers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yikes! When did the US population drop to just 326 people?
I'm surprised I didn't hear about this.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Quite apart from the comical mathematics failure someone else kindly highlighted to you, you've also assumed that a company's revenue is cash available for them.
Out of that revenue they have to pay tax, pay suppliers, pay staff, pay to maintain assets (e.g. computers, computer systems, buildings), fund marketing, and a myriad of other costs that businesses face.
When next seeking to explore how easily a company could pay for something, perhaps start with their profits rather than their revenue.
Privacy? Security? (Score:2)
Privacy and Security sound like real things on paper. You can argue about them. You can explain how one was stolen and the other was exploited. They make for great stories. There is always a victim. Sometimes there is a hero.
In reality, almost everyone on the internet has had something stolen from them. Passwords. Credit card numbers. Social Security numbers. In almost every case nothing substantial came from it. Most people simply don't care as the consequences are few and far between.
In Eq
Common pattern (Score:4, Interesting)
A company has a big problem, their stock goes down. Then it's cheap. Then the problem gets fixed and the stock goes up.
Happens over and over:
- QCOM during Apple lawsuit
- Boeing during 787 Dreamliner problems
- Facebook scandal of the week for months this time last year.
- Goldman Sachs bribery issue
Buying their stock when things are bad is a good strategy. Currently, Boeing and Wells Fargo fit this. JNJ and Intel are starting to get past problems.
PG&E is the counterexample.
Bring back public executions starting with Equifax (Score:1, Troll)
Hopefully all employees are publicly executed for their crimes against American citizens. If the government doesnâ(TM)t start televising very public, slow, and cruel executions of these monsters then they will continue taking advantage of people. #BringBackQuartering
Re: (Score:2)
Freeze your credit, people! (Score:3)
If this story doesn't convince you to put a freeze on your credit, I don't know what will.
If you want to hit Equifax where it hurts, that's the only way to do it. They can't monetize a frozen credit report.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"Identity theft insurance" and "credit monitoring" services are basically worthless - no argument there. But a credit freeze, i.e. the type of freeze mandated by federal law, does work. It prevents criminals from opening a new line of credit in your name.
My mother was
Re: (Score:2)
So... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Settlement was $425 million but only about $30 million allocated to the $125 payouts that they agreed. If too many people apply they all get less. The other option is to at accept their ID theft monitoring service for free for a bit. A lot of people probably already have that from other settlements or free from their bank or something so want the $125.
Re: (Score:2)
Security implications (Score:4, Insightful)
Equifax sustained the huge breach that they did because they did what most companies do: they paid lip service to security. This just proves that it was the right thing to do - it is a good policy to pretend to take security seriously, while making sure to not spend more than strictly necessary to maintain the aura of credibility. When the inevitable breach happens, just do damage control and move on.
Equifax ought to have been brought down to is knees and sued out of existence for criminal negligence. Instead, its stock has risen more than 50%. Not investing in security pays off.
All it proves (Score:3)
All this proves is this country (US) is bought and paid for, does not matter who is elected, large companies run the US. Why even bother voting.
Would love to see how this would have turned out if it happened in Europe
informational note (Score:1)
The stock ticker symbols of the three semi-official national Social Credit scoring agencies are not necessarily obvious from their names, due to a long history of mergers and acquisitions.
For the reader's convenience, here are the stock tickers for each Social Credit agency:
- Equifax: EVL
- Experian: SATN
- TransUnion: BZLB
How does the stock market even work? (Score:2)
How does the stock market even work? Is there any logic to all this?
I fail to see it.
The theory goes that mistakes like this would normally be punished, but it clearly isn't.
Free credit reporting (Score:1)
I have no less than FIVE separate companies who have offered free credit monitoring as penance for their security sins. Seriously? Is there anyone left who doesn't already have this going on in some way? Offer something more useful, please.
Unbelievable (Score:2)
When I get my check for $3.11 (Score:2)