Equifax Hit With Multi-Billion Dollar Class Action Suit

September 8, 2017 Business, News

The Daily Beast reports:

Victims of one of the most significant data breaches in U.S. history have filed a class-action lawsuit against the credit-monitoring firm Equifax.

On Thursday, the company announced that hackers had stolen Social Security numbers and other personal information belonging to 143 million people, leaving them potentially vulnerable to identity theft and fraud. Victims of the breach in Oregon have now filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.

“Plaintiffs file this complaint as a national class action on behalf of over 140 million consumers across the country harmed by Equifax’s failure to adequately protect their credit and personal information,” the complaint reads. Greg Otto from Cyberscoop shared a copy of the document online.

Bloomberg News reported that three Equifax executives unexpectedly sold company stock several days after Equifax first learned of the data breach, but before revealing it to the public. In response to news of the breach, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has called for legislation requiring companies to inform consumers of similar hacks.

More from Raw Story:



Equifax, the credit score company that put more than 140 million Americans at risk of identity theft this week, will not let you engage in a class-action lawsuit if you consent to arbitration on its website.

ZDNet editor Zack Whittaker notes that anyone who signs up for Equifax’s free credit monitoring service to see if their personal information has been compromised must sign away the right to participate in any class action lawsuit against the company.

CBS News confirms Whittaker’s interpretation and reports that the monitoring service, called TrustedID Premier, forces customers to sign away their rights to sue.

“By waiving away their legal rights, consumers instead agree to mandatory arbitration, a tactic that has come under fire by consumer rights advocates as ‘rip-off clauses’ because they bar consumers from banning together to sue in a class action,” CBS News reports.

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