Current Events > Equifax lobbied to kill rule protecting victims of data breaches

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/equifax-lobbied-kill-rule-protecting-victims-data-breaches-2587929

If you want to know if you were one of the 143 million people whose data was breached in a hack of Equifax’s data, the company has a website you can use to find out — but there appears to be a catch: To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages. The outrage that clause has now generated could complicate the company’s efforts — backed by Republican lawmakers — to block an imminent rule that would ban companies from forcing customers to agree to such provisions.

On Friday, social media users spotlighted fine print on Equifax’s website that appears to force users to agree to waive their class action rights if they use the company’s website to see if their personal data was exposed by the recent hack. It is precisely the kind of arbitration clause that a pending Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule is designed to outlaw — if Republicans and the Trump administration allow it to go into effect as scheduled later this month.

f you want to know if you were one of the 143 million people whose data was breached in a hack of Equifax’s data, the company has a website you can use to find out — but there appears to be a catch: To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages. The outrage that clause has now generated could complicate the company’s efforts — backed by Republican lawmakers — to block an imminent rule that would ban companies from forcing customers to agree to such provisions.

On Friday, social media users spotlighted fine print on Equifax’s website that appears to force users to agree to waive their class action rights if they use the company’s website to see if their personal data was exposed by the recent hack. It is precisely the kind of arbitration clause that a pending Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule is designed to outlaw — if Republicans and the Trump administration allow it to go into effect as scheduled later this month.

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Antifar posted...

To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages

Free market, everyone
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Yeah, lots of articles saying don't check. It's a fucking mess.
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Well I guess I shouldn't have checked. But the government has already let my stuff out atleast twice.
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Good thing I read this
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dummy420 posted...

Well I guess I shouldn't have checked. But the government has already let my stuff out atleast twice.

I've been affected by 8 breeches in my past. 8.

I have given up caring. I don't have any active credit cards, and my credit isn't worth shit anymore, so it's not like they can hurt me top bad. There isn't a creditor on earth that would approve me for anything right now lol.
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Returning_CEmen posted...

Good thing I read this

Yeah, do NOT check their site to see if you're affected.

Oh and funny story, TechCrunch played with it a bit and found it basically tells everyone they're affected.
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Antifar posted...

To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages.

what
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SGT_Conti posted...

Antifar posted...

To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages.

what

It's true. The fine print on the site says you're waiving your right to pursue legal action.
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Republican backed bill


Surprise surprise
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I don't think this is accurate.

There's no such text indicating this just for checking on the website. It does exist if you sign up for other shit afterwards though.
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As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.
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I mean that's ridiculous, and honestly not that unexpected, but do you really have to check? I mean, how many adults are there in the US? Can't that much more than 143 million. You're affected. We all are.
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Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

Can't wait for them to get hit with insider trading

buahahaha who am I kidding?
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Bloodychess posted...

Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

Can't wait for them to get hit with insider trading

buahahaha who am I kidding?

lol rich people getting arrested. good one
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Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

They did indeed. They learned of the breach July 28th. Didn't inform people for a month.
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Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

The fuck

That's definitely gotta be illegal, right?
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littlebro07 posted...

Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

The fuck

That's definitely gotta be illegal, right?

It's definitely suspect, but nothing will likely happen
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littlebro07 posted...

Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

The fuck

That's definitely gotta be illegal, right?

It is illegal. But they won't ever face charges for it. If they do it'll be a meaningless fine and the people who'll get fired will be low level employees who were just doing the job they were told to do.
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that clause is not legally enforceable. new york attorney general has said so.

Antifar posted...

If you want to know if you were one of the 143 million people whose data was breached in a hack of Equifax’s data, the company has a website you can use to find out — but there appears to be a catch: To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages. The outrage that clause has now generated could complicate the company’s efforts — backed by Republican lawmakers — to block an imminent rule that would ban companies from forcing customers to agree to such provisions.

I was wondering earlier today if someone was going to bring a class action lawsuit to it. What a bunch of slimy fuckers

Tmaster148 posted...

littlebro07 posted...

Esrac posted...

As I heard it, the breach happened a couple months ago. But Equifax waited to tell anyone...until after the higher-ups in the company sold their stock before the company's value dropped like a rock. Which it did.

The fuck

That's definitely gotta be illegal, right?

It is illegal. But they won't ever face charges for it. If they do it'll be a meaningless fine and the people who'll get fired will be low level employees who were just doing the job they were told to do.

exactly this. its wells fargo all over again.
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Just to play devil's advocate, what was the reason put forward for the legislation that could be passed?

Lol, I pasted the first part of the article twice like some sort of nincompoop.

Here's some that gets into that Devil's advocate business

Federal documents reviewed by International Business Times show that in response to that 2016 rule, the Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA) — which says it is “the trade association which represents Equifax” — pressed regulators to back off the proposed prohibitions, saying the regulations would subject data companies to tough penalties if during a class action suit they were found to have broken the law.

In one section of the letter, CDIA declares that federal regulators “should exempt from its arbitration rule class action claims against providers of credit monitoring products.” The letter asserted that allowing customers to sue companies “would not serve the public interest or the public good” because it could subject the companies to “extraordinary and draconian civil liability provisions” under current law. In another section of the letter, Equifax’s lobbying group says that a rule blocking companies from forcing their customers to waive class action rights would expose credit agencies “to unmanageable class action liability that could result in full disgorgement of revenues” if companies are found to have illegally harmed their customers.

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So stop harming your customers

jfc I hate how laws and businesses treat people like nothing and get away with it
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I've always wondered why something as sensitive and critical as credit and credit reporting is handled by third-party private corporations

That honestly seems like something that should have more oversight
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SSj4Wingzero posted...

I've always wondered why something as sensitive and critical as credit and credit reporting is handled by third-party private corporations

That honestly seems like something that should have more oversight

Should probably just be nationalized.
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Bloodychess posted...

So stop harming your customers

jfc I hate how laws and businesses treat people like nothing and get away with it

It's largely just that these large corporations can pay off the government to let them do whatever. But if this was some small local business it would have everything thrown at them.
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Antifar posted...

Should probably just be nationalized.

Yeah. It's a bit strange when the people who control your financial well-being are not held accountable to anybody else *and* they lack any legal authority to prosecute identity theft

The problem here is that the data isn't stored in a single place - that's why prosecuting identity theft is so difficult and coming back from it is ridiculously costly. Even if you get your bank accounts in order, one of the credit agencies might not fix the erroneous information on your report (given what's happened with Equifax it's pretty clear they're quite incompetent), and sometimes that can be a years-long battle with the credit agencies, since it seems it is *extremely* difficult to prove to them that you did not buy or spend whatever the identity thief did.
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I thought the arbitration clause only applied to those who signed up for the credit monitoring. There aren't any terms for just checking to see if you're affected as far as I can see.
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CableZL posted...

I thought the arbitration clause only applied to those who signed up for the credit monitoring. There aren't any terms for just checking to see if you're affected as far as I can see.

It is.

But who knows, at the rate this is going they're gonna pay the hackers to sign everyone up for less than itd be to be sued
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SSj4Wingzero posted...

Antifar posted...

Should probably just be nationalized.

Yeah. It's a bit strange when the people who control your financial well-being are not held accountable to anybody else *and* they lack any legal authority to prosecute identity theft

The problem here is that the data isn't stored in a single place - that's why prosecuting identity theft is so difficult and coming back from it is ridiculously costly. Even if you get your bank accounts in order, one of the credit agencies might not fix the erroneous information on your report (given what's happened with Equifax it's pretty clear they're quite incompetent), and sometimes that can be a years-long battle with the credit agencies, since it seems it is *extremely* difficult to prove to them that you did not buy or spend whatever the identity thief did.

It's a fucking scam
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The best defense against identity theft is to be broke and have terrible credit.

BootyGif posted...

exactly this. its wells fargo all over again.

Uh, Wells Fargo fired multiple executives and clawed back hundreds of millions of dollars from executives.
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The bank was fined 185 million dollars, which sounds like a lot, until you realize that their profit in 2016 was 21.93 billion dollars. 185 million dollars is less than less than 1% of the bank's profits. It's around .8%, to be exact. That's like, two days' worth of profit for them. Barely a drop in the bucket.

As for firing executives and taking their money?

The Board decided to take back thus far a total of $69 million dollars from Stumpf. Sounds like a lot, right? But this dude literally made $286 million from 2011-2016 alone. He's literally walking away with more than 200 million dollars. And that's just from 2011-2016. He's been working for much longer than that.

Edit: Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/10/wells-fargo-board-slams-stumpf-and-tolstedt-claws-back-millions.html

This is what people mean when they say nothing bad ever actually happens to big executives in finance. They can screw over millions of people and commit all sorts of fraud upon our citizens and government and suffer virtually no consequences. If a guy like Stumpf actually went to prison, maybe companies wouldn't be so reckless and unethical with people's money, but that doesn't happen often. Hell, the only reason Madoff went to prison was because most of his clients were rich people
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you guys wanna talk about cuckolding; thats what the banks do to us every damn day.

That definitely wouldn't hold up in a court lol
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But...but... muh free market.
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Ewww
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BootyGif posted...

Republican backed bill


Surprise surprise

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Nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing shitty businesses like this destroyed, and all the higher ups and people who orchestrate stunts like this stripped of the profits they earned and tossed in jail.

But it won't happen.
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If they want to stop shit like this, every time an executive is found to be knowingly endangering millions of people for their own benefit, just fucking execute them (legally of course, not street justice).

After a couple CEOs are hauled off to death row these companies will start taking their cyber security seriously.
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LightningAce11 posted...

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing shitty businesses like this destroyed, and all the higher ups and people who orchestrate stunts like this stripped of the profits they earned and tossed in jail.

But it won't happen.

Nah they'll just change the name of the business and will barely miss a beat.
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This thing isn't true, btw. You're safe to check your status and even enroll in the credit monitoring without it having any impact on your legal recourse.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

The best defense against identity theft is to be broke and have terrible credit.

Aka me right now. Sort of. I'm going through bankruptcy.
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Trigg3rH4ppy posted...

If they want to stop shit like this, every time an executive is found to be knowingly endangering millions of people for their own benefit, just fucking execute them (legally of course, not street justice).

After a couple CEOs are hauled off to death row these companies will start taking their cyber security seriously.

Or even any significant amount of jail time, really. These are people who probably don't even know how to open their own car doors.

"Punishment" for these CEOs generally means getting to keep 150 million dollars instead of 200 million dollars, as if that's somehow supposed to assuage the public's anger
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https://www.google.com/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59b364fae4b0dfaafcf81bf7/amp

So Equifax went back and said it doesn't affect consumers to see if they are affected.
Basically they edited the clause cause "just kidding! We didnt mean that! And we most certainly didnt change it because a state general said its basically illegal!"
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