Go to www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com, scroll down and hit the little green button that says “find out if your information was impacted” and follow the instructions.
If you were impacted by the Equifax data breach in 2017, you can choose either $125 or free credit monitoring for a period of time.
If you sign up you are waiving your right to sue Equifax down the road (but let’s be honest, are you really going to do that anyways?).
That said, you may or may not get $125. As Equifax outlines in their Settlement FAQ, if too many people sign up there won’t be enough to go around (they don’t have to give everyone $125, they just have to pay out $31 million). So consider the free credit monitoring if you don’t already get that service for free.
To riff off the Equifax class action, consider signing up for other class action settlements (you know those little postcards you get in the mail). Just like Equifax, you’ll give up your right to sue later (darn!), but personally speaking I’ve collected over $500 in the last 12 months from class action settlements.
And a final riff – Equifax (and the Capital One security breach this week) is another good reason to log into Financial Zen (or Mint or YNAB) regularly and look at your spending transactions. If something nefarious does happen, you’ll know right away and can address it ASAP (that’s the same reason we check your credit report during your accountability appointment every year).
Wrapping up like a grade school book report:
In conclusion, get your $125 (maybe) or free credit monitoring, sign up for class action settlements and check your spending transactions on www.financialzen.com at least monthly.
