American Victims of the Equifax Hack Can File Claims on New Website

(Bloomberg) -- Americans who are curious if they’re among the 147 million people whose personal identifying information was compromised in Equifax Inc.’s massive 2017 data breach can now find out on a new website.

The site, www.EquifaxBreachSettlement.com, will also let people file claims for restitution or set up credit-monitoring services, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who helped secure a $700 million settlement with Equifax, said Wednesday in a statement.

James, who probed the breach alongside the Federal Trade Commission and 48 other states, said the hack compromised Social Security Numbers, names, dates of birth, addresses and credit card numbers -- the kind of information that can be used for identity theft.

“Consumers will need to deal with the fallout of this breach for years to come, and this website is just the first step in helping provide consumers with the tools to recover,” James said in the statement.

People can file claims for as much as $20,000 to compensate them for money lost due to identity theft or fraud, according to the statement.

Equifax agreed this week to pay as much as $700 million to resolve the investigations, including $425 million to compensate consumers. James said an earlier version of the website set up in 2017 was “riddled with vague and inaccurate information” that confused consumers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider

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