Is it just me, or is Equifax still overpriced at $99/share?
I feel as if the media/country has not yet fully grasped the full severity of this situation. This is NOT going to be a mere $5 settlement check to everyone affected and end of story. Unlike your typical class action lawsuit, the results of this breach will have LIFE LONG CONSEQUENCES. This is by far, the worst data breach in human history.
143 MILLION users had their SSN and other info stolen. A one-year subscription to a credit monitoring service won't do you JACK SHIT. That's like paying for a home alarm system that only notifies you after the burglary has occurred. The best way to protect yourself is to call the 3 credit bureaus to freeze your credit, then un-freeze when you apply for credit, re-freeze again, etc. Just think of all the TIME and MONEY you will now need to spend doing this…FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!
Say you have 40 years left to live, on average need access to show your credit 3x per year (doesn't mean you apply for credit each time...remember, it can also be needed for employment verification, rental, etc.), and on average pay $10 for each freeze per credit bureau. That's $3,600. If your time is worth $20/hour, and assuming each call takes you 5 min (I'm being generous I know), that's $1,200. Total loss = $4,800. FOR. ONE. PERSON. How in the hell will a $5 settlement check cut this? I can see at least TENS OF THOUSANDS of people opting out of a shitty class action and instead going the small-claims route (I know I will). 500k small claims x $4.8k = $2.4 BILLION. 500k small claims may sound like a lot to you but remember…that’s only 0.34% of the affected base. There are already websites in development designed to simplify the Equifax small claims suit process.
EFX has total current assets of $1B and makes net income of $480M per year, so why are they currently trading with a $12 BILLION market cap when they literally face BILLIONS in legal liability?
Submitted September 13, 2017 at 06:03PM by rfv85 http://ift.tt/2xyFZKe
