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Equifax Hit With 'Dozens' of Lawsuits from Shareholders and Consumers -- Plus a Possible Class Action (chicagotribune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
Since it announced a massive data breach earlier this month, Equifax has been hit with dozens of lawsuits from shareholders, consumers and now one filed by a small Wisconsin credit union that represents what could be the first by a financial institution attempting to preemptively recoup losses caused by alleged fraud the hack could cause... In the lawsuit, which seeks class action status, Madison-based Summit Credit Union says that financial institutions will have to bear the cost of canceling and reissuing credit cards as well as absorbing the cost of any fraudulent charges. They will also lose "profits because their members or customers were unwilling or unable to use their credit cards following the breach," according to the lawsuit...
"For financial institutions it is important: They bear the financial responsibility for identity theft," said Summit's attorney Stacey Slaughter of the law firm Robins Kaplan. "All of the components that would allow someone to create a new identity" were exposed in the Equifax hack.
Equifax responded that they can't comment on pending litigation, according to the article, though "Equifax has said it did its best to respond to the breach and alerted consumers as quickly as it could..."
"The company's stock price has fallen 27 percent since it announced the hack September 7."
"For financial institutions it is important: They bear the financial responsibility for identity theft," said Summit's attorney Stacey Slaughter of the law firm Robins Kaplan. "All of the components that would allow someone to create a new identity" were exposed in the Equifax hack.
Equifax responded that they can't comment on pending litigation, according to the article, though "Equifax has said it did its best to respond to the breach and alerted consumers as quickly as it could..."
"The company's stock price has fallen 27 percent since it announced the hack September 7."
Good.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Equifax has said it did its best to respond to the breach and alerted consumers as quickly as it could..." - You mean Equifax alerted consumers as quickly as they could after their executives sold their shares...
Pitiful. Hope they go outta business.
The class action will let them pay some lawyer a fill million and basically get indemnified against all future damages. OTOH with how weak our consumer protection laws are class action is about the only thing keeping companies, well I wouldn't call it "honest"... maybe just barely sorta in check.
btw, if you're reading this and have been one of the ones railing against 'job killing regulations' (their words, not mine) this is the consequences of the relentless drive to stop government oversight in the name of freedom. Nobody ever cuts the rules about using squirrels for the purposes of gambling because those kind of silly laws are no longer enforced. They go after stuff that would punish Equifax for ignoring security.
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> "Equifax has said it did its best to respond to the
> breach and alerted consumers as quickly as it
> could..."
And by "as quickly as it could", Equifax means that they view sitting on the breach and keeping the public in the dark while the C-levels sell off their stock as being legitimate.
Imagine all the people...
A private cancer on society, whose main job was giving great jobs to upper-crust incompetent inbreds.
Burn.
... when the hackers steal the litigation winnings from our bank accounts?
Sorry, but none of these lawsuits over what "might" happen are going to see any scrutiny at all. In order to bring a civil action, one must be able to show demonstrable, factual harm. Suing over what "could" happen is not part of it.
That's like a murderer saying, "but your honor, I killed her as quickly as I could".
Uhhhh.... still a murderer, Equifax. You will pay.
"For financial institutions it is important: They bear the financial responsibility for identity theft," said Summit's attorney Stacey Slaughter of the law firm Robins Kaplan. "All of the components that would allow someone to create a new identity" were exposed in the Equifax hack.
It is not my job to securely guard my name, address and social security number. It is, in fact, impossible to secure it. It is the bank's responsibility to make sure they lend to the right person. Banks can not lend to any one claiming to be A and hold A responsible for default.
If they lend to B and report A is in default, A should be able to sue the banks for libel.
The root cause of this identity theft market is the willingness of the banks to lend without doing full verification of the identity. If banks won't lend so easily, then there is no reason for people to steal identity. Banks want to lend freely, without any verification. They make us prove we did not borrow the money and we were victims of identity theft. It should not be our responsibility.
In fact they won't be able to collect in court if they sue us. The only weapon they have is to report us to be in default. Well, we need to take that weapon away from them. They should not be able to report default without first proving they lent to the person they allege to have defaulted on loans.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"The company's stock price has fallen 27 percent since it announced the hack September 7."
Surprised it is still at 73% of old price. I would like it to go bankrupt and take the entire credit reporting industry down with it.
We need to make both the banks, and the credit reporting agencies responsible for any fraudulent information they might publish. Claim A is in default of a loan, without proof that it was A who actually borrowed, bank should be liable for libel. Report the bank's claim, the credit reporting agency should be held accessory after the fact, aider and abettor. That is the only way to clean up the mess.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In the credit reporting sector. Each of the three reporting agencies have operated without oversight for decades. We need to lock this industry with strict regulation. The current system is designed to maximize profit for everyone involved, but the actual reportee. We need to reduce the opelortunity for profiteering while simultaneously empowering the indIviduals in the report. No more charging to obtain your report. No more charging for FICO scores. Complete transparency in how a score is calculated and free reporting tools that give you a clear path to a better score. Gut all of the third party industries who prey on gullible people by promising to raise their score. Enough of this bullshit.
Who are the idiots still holding onto Equifax stocks? Seriously, sell that shit and let Equifax burn.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This is why suing Equifax into oblivion is not enough because then the company and shareholders, not the executives responsible for the lack of security, suffer. What is needed are criminal charges against those in charge of this fiasco. It sounds like there is already an investigation into insider trading but what is really needed is charges related to data protection but I don't know if US law allows for that like it does in the EU and Canada.
1 year of credit monitoring is all they are offering. Obviously we are at a point where use of the secret social security number is at an end. We need to revamp the entire system. You have my cell phone, When someone is trying to open an account in my name, call me. I'll either validate it or not. If you open the account without my say so, I'm not liable for the charges. oh, and a big fuck you on the credit monitoring. They keep putting someone else's items on my credit report because his first name is also chris and his social security number is one digit off from mine. I've been dealing with this stupid shit for years now.
That's funny, I didn't receive any alert by snail mail, email, phone, text, voice, kazoo, morse code, or 2 soup cans tied together with a string. The only way I heard about it was on the news almost 4 months after the fucking breach, then and only then did I find out I'm one of the fucked. Equifax and the other 2 need to be litigated out of existence and whatever takes it's place does not get anyones SS numbers.
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I hope that this is the beginning of the death knell for the credit bureaus. They serve no purpose whatsoever except to discriminate and punish consumers. It's about time they get a taste of their own bad medicine.
Well, they obviously couldn't respond to the breach before they dumped their stocks...
Did you try rebooting?
Sometimes the driver installations don't "take", and you have to reinstall them a couple of times to make it work.
This talks about a class action suit on behalf of financial institutions, but seriously, every single person in the US over the age of say, 17, could potentially be in a class action lawsuit against Equifax.
What would we get, like a $3 iTunes gift card or something?
$5 off on our next credit report?
A possible solution: Have individuals who want to be part of the credit system create a secure account with a major credit bureau. Then have businesses advertise which credit bureau they have an aggreement with. A lot like Credit Cards or grocery store discount cards, except the bueaus only track the credit, they don't grant it. Or perhaps like having paypal use other forms of payment, so its just an account to transfer funds through.
This company needs to be washed away like a sand castle.
The absolute stupidity on display here should be nothing other then career ending for each and every one of those arrogant executives. To not understand the consequence of the information they steward is madness. There absolutely has to be exacting penalties for companies that store personal information. Senate inquiries should be launched into how such blazing ignorance was allowed perpetuate to this extent.
Too often, a class action lawsuit means the lawyers gets $xx million, I get a $3 coupon.
But in this case I'd participate just to screw with Equifax.
Yeah, "as quickly as it could", but not before it had a chance to buy an identity protection firm to make a few bucks of the disaster.
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