On Thursday, Sept. 8, 2017, one of the main credit bureaus in the United States, Equifax, announced there was a massive hack to their website. The theft included credit card data, social security numbers, and addresses of over 140 million people. On Friday, the company made an official statement responding its customer’s inquiries.

They are offering those affected a one-year complimentary trial of their credit monitoring program. While this appears to be a good deal it may not be much of a token of apology. If a person chooses to sign up for this they are waiving their right to sue the company for any losses incurred from the hack.

Although the company clarified that the arbitration clause and class action waiver do not apply to the cyber security incident, some lawyers cite discomfort in the wording Equifax uses.

The former New Jersey deputy attorney general, Joel Winston explained that the contractual obligations are negated simply because someone from the Equifax marketing department wrote that the original terms of service will no longer apply.

Experts suggest caution when accepting the agreement without further clarification. They also urge those affected to keep track of any credit issues relating to the theft of their information.

Written by Bassil Sockar
Edited by Cathy Milne

Sources:

The Washington Post: Equifax finally responds to swirling concerns over consumers’ legal rights
Huffington Post: Equifax Is Trying To Make Money Off Its Massive Security Failure
Engadget: Equifax tries to explain its response to a massive security breach
LifeHacker: Think Twice Before Signing Up For Equifax’s ‘Free’ Credit Monitoring

Featured and Top Image Courtesy of CafeCredit.com’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License