Equifax Data Breach

Equifax will send mailed notices to any customer whose credit card numbers or dispute records were accessed, but they will not be personally contacting every individual who has been breached.

Equifax is now offering a year of free monitoring and protection to customers – but it could be a ploy for the company to benefit from customers that forget to cancel their enrollment.

Equifax’s free monitoring and protection services are offered for one year.

To be eligible for the services, users are required to create an account and include billing information.

Users must cancel the account after one year or they are subject to be automatically charged for Equifax auto-renewal subscription the following year.

Equifax’s free monitoring and protection services include an arbitration clause – a boilerplate contract that could protect the company from future lawsuits.

• There is an arbitration service included in Equifax’s free monitoring and protection package.
• Users must send Equifax a written letter within 30 days requesting to opt out of their arbitration services, otherwise, they waive their right to take legal recourse against the company.
• It must be a written letter, there is no online form.
• The legality of this clause is currently being challenged.

As of October 4^th, Equifax announced an additional 2.5 million account breaches in addition to the initial 143 million account breaches announced on September 7^th.

Three of Equifax’s top executives offloaded a high volume of their personal shares in the company less than a week after the Equifax breach occurred – yet Equifax executives claim these were routinely scheduled trades and they were not made aware of the breach at the time.

• Chief financial officer John Gamble sold 13% of his stock:  $946,374
• US Information Solution President Joseph Loughran sold 9% of his stock:  $584,099
• Workforce Solutions President Rodolf Ploder sold 4% of his stock:  $250,458
• The SEC is currently conducting an investigation into these stock-dumps

Equifax Chairman and Chief Executive, Richard F. Smith, retired on Monday, Sept. 25 in the wake of the Equifax breach.

Smith had been CEO for 12 years.

Although his retirement as CEO is effective immediately, Smith will take on the role of an ‘unpaid advisor’ to assist in the CEO transition.

An Equifax board member, Mark Feidler, will take over as the company’s non-executive chairman.

Although Equifax announced the initial account breaches in a September 7^th press release, the company was made aware of these breaches as early as July 29^th.

Equifax chose to keep the information private.

Unfortunately for the millions of American consumers affected, this means that for more than six weeks, the attackers had the opportunity to use stolen personal information to take out loans, open accounts, and credit cards, make purchases, and commit identity theft.

Currently, the number of lawsuits against Equifax is growing throughout U.S. courts in response to the company’s negligent actions.

TorHoerman Law was at the forefront of this litigation being one of the first firms to file an Equifax lawsuit in Illinois.

TorHoerman Law is currently not accepting Equifax lawsuit cases.

If you have questions, please contact us.